Old Age

At 74 years old my mind is slowly deteriorating.  I don’t know if it is merely senility, possibly due to ingested medication, or it could be early stages of something more sinister such as alzhiemer’s disease.  At any rate I intend to assess myself as closely as possible and blog of it from time to time for the benefit of those who will find themselves in the same situation sooner or later.

Most of the time my brain seems to function as well as it ever did, but there are times when I seem unable to concentrate to the degree I once was able to.  It is not unusual for me to lose a train of thought in midstream any more.  The slightest distraction while I am speaking about any topic may cause me to lose the thought immediately.

There are times, which come more often as time passes, when I cannot remember how to do the simplest task which I may have been familiar with for many years.  For instance, I may want to read the CNN news on my PC.  I automatically open my browser.  I then automatically open my “favorites” folder.  Then possibly for a few moments I seem unable to know what to do next.  CNN is not there.  Oh, I have a folder labeled “News,” I must open that, and then there is a subfolder labeled CNN.  The few moments of hesitation is the newcomer to my life.  It used to be entirely automatic to go through that process where I now have to think about parts of it, with a lessening ability to think.

I have heard it said that older people seem to want to live in the past.  I think now that it is not so much “want to live in the past” as it is forced to live in the past.  I can remember an event from December 1941, and another from January 1942, both decidedly very traumatic, yet still recallable although I was only around 3 ½ years old at the time.  In the meantime I can’t remember things that have happened much more recently.  I tend to live in the past because it’s all that I remember.

More another time if I remember to blog about it again.