Elusive Words

Harriman Ranch, WY

I've looked up the phenomenon online. Turns out that, yup, random word loss is a normal part of aging. An annoying one.

I read a lot, and have a correspondingly large vocabulary. I wouldn't think, with all those words to choose from, it would bother me when one temporarily gets mislaid. But it does bother me. I KNOW the word. It's right there. I'm in the middle of a sentence and about to use it. And...  and... it's gone.

Not permanently, no. All I have to do is switch tasks for a few minutes, then go back to see if I can recall the word. Thus far, it's always been there. Sometimes, I've moved on; forgotten the word was missing. My brain doesn't forget, though - it's still looking for the word. Several times recently, as I've been falling asleep, I've been jolted awake. 'I found it!', says my brain. (My brain is happy when it finds the things it's misplaced.)

I remember the first time this happened to me. I was at a family gathering, talking to one of my uncles, and one of my kids walked up.  'Kate', I said as I started to properly introduce them, 'this is my Uncle...  Uncle... Uncle...'  His name was gone. I was mortified. How could I have forgotten the name of someone I'd known my entire life? I stumbled through the rest of the introduction, and walked away. Five minutes later, I tracked Kate down.  'Uncle Leland!, Uncle Leland!  His name is Uncle Leland.' She gave me a funny look, as teenagers are wont to do when you do something they are slightly embarrassed about, and everyone but me moved on, promptly forgetting about the incident as something not worth wasting brain cells on.

It's a little scary, this getting older thing. The forgotten words are small, but they are an undeniable reminder my youth is in my past. However, I don't have to do this alone - the world is helping me cope with the changes. No, the creaks and aches aren't going away. Yes, Tiger Balm helps to ease them. No, fifty-odd years of wear on my teeth isn't going away. Yes, I can cover them with crowns when they break. (Here, I stop and raise a toast to the steady hands of my dentist...) No, my eyebrows, which I have always totally taken for granted until they disappeared this past winter, aren't going to magically regain their color. Yes, they have makeup for this, so I can fake their presence on any day I wish.

And no, the words aren't going to stop disappearing. But chances are good I'll have plenty of others to choose from to express myself for the foreseeable future. (and, bonus, the gods of technology have thoughtfully provided me with online thesauruses (thesauri??) to help me find words as needed.)

Life doesn't come with guarantees; getting older ain't for wimps. A sense of humor helps.