Memory Problems

3 min read

Of late, I have been struggling with awareness of a failing memory that creeps on you with age.   Over time, I have found my ability to recollect get slower and slower, to the point where I find myself perceptibly waiting for my recall to kick in.   There are times where I just wait, and there are times when my memory totally fails me.   It takes concentration to even get to process through what I am thinking about.   Maybe its just my dread of failure, but I find my head hurts as I try to figure out the who, what or where of some question.  It’s all back there somewhere, but it now takes forever to extract it.   My very sense of self has suffered as a result.   My kids have stopped asking for my opinion, since they can get answers elsewhere much quicker.  I walk the streets in an uncertain fashion, sometimes not quite sure of where I am.  Age has taken a terrible toll on me.

I quite fancied my intellect growing up and throughout my career.  I had a particular knack of putting facts together to provide the better solution, better framework, better guidance, in most settings.  People would come to me for help in thinking through their problems.   And my database of knowledge was a integral part of my worth and thereby my standing in society.    We not only  live in a knowledge economy, but also a knowledge society.  With the advent of mechanization in the last century, strength has given way to knowledge and analysis as the basis of distinctive ability.    But its not enough to have attained it, you have to maintain it.   

And as with any fading strength, its harder to lose an ability than to not have had it at all, since you are burdened with the awareness of being less than you were.   Moreover, your future is a bleak recognition of continual degradation !   I now live in fear that my respect, my standing in family and my sense of self will all wither away over the next few years.   Is this the end of my identity ? Do I just give up ?  Am I freaking out ?

My wife arranged a meeting with an expert.  She has confidence in experts and does not believe in worrying till an expert has told you to worry.    I sat in the brightly lit space, quite airy, with a multitude of others.  I scanned their faces, looking for a sign of recognition of similar plight.  They all must have some issue, since they are here, but no one seemed to reflect my inner panic.   They all are so much younger too, full of the confidence of youth and with none of my pangs.     I keep to myself and stay in my thoughts.

The specialist arrives.  He too exudes the self-assured air of a person in charge of this part of his life, in his space and in his sphere of knowledge.  Maybe the right person to calm me down !   

“Hmm, I see your problem.  We will have to run some diagnostics to know the best way to address your issues.” 

They run their tests, as I wait alternately hopeful and glum.   At last, the specialist returns. 

“I am afraid I have bad news.  Age has taken its toll and the memory isn’t sufficient.   Nothing is going to improve the ability to process.  You just have to accepts things being slower and sluggish. Unless…”  And this was the dreaded moment. 

“It’s been four years, sir.  It’s time you upgraded to the iPhone 11.  The 6 was powerful in its time, but it just cant keep up.  The apps are too loaded.”  

“But my headphone jack, my touchID, what happens to that?”

 “Well you just have to get used to the new way.”

I sat benumbed as they took away my staple of memory and brainpower over the past four years, my reliable source of recall and identity.  The emptiness that comes with having given up, began to come over me.    And then I saw my new shiny toy, all set up to serve as the new brain.  The speed was astonishing, the screen was bright, and no crinkles or cracks showing age. How could I resist something so new?