Memory is a bitch.
As I age, I find that I'm more forgetful. I have to make lists to stay on task. I walk into rooms and stand there trying to remember why I walked into the room. I ponder for far too long someone's name. The other day, it was Sofia Vergara's name that eluded me. Now I can't remember why I was trying to remember it.
My husband is so forgetful that he doesn't remember he's forgetful. He's always been this way. He forgets to lock doors, close doors, pick up his cellphone from a restaurant table, check a hotel closet for clothes, etc. Our front door keys are in the seat pocket of an airplane (Glenn has no memory of this incident - he insists I lost them). The key I gave to a neighbor for when Glenn locks himself out of the house? Glenn locked himself out of the house, borrowed the key and promptly lost it. His original wedding ring is at his parents' former house somewhere. Hundreds of cellphone chargers and power cords are in hotel rooms and press boxes. I now buy replacements in bulk.
Glenn thinks I have an unreasonable hatred of candles. I don't. In my single days, I burned candles and scented my house in lovely, lucious smells. Now I live with a man who toddles off to bed or - even better - out the house and leaves candles burning. He scorched the bathroom wall and ceiling with soot by leaving a candle burning too close to the wall. Glenn's defense: "Anyone could do that. You forgot your cellphone the other day."
Last week, the window salesman came by. Many of our windows are original to the home but not in a historic kind of way. The salesman looked at the bedroom window and said we'd need to put in one that opens as a fire exit. Glenn remembers that conversation as we need to put in one that opens so we can let in fresh air. He loves opening windows, requiring me to go through the house periodically and lock all the windows he's closed but forgotten to lock. I've been fighting his insistence on getting window screens. I just know he's going to drive off and leave three or four windows wide open. Then the dog will push through the screen. Or the cat will push through the screen. Or a burglar will push through the screen. Glenn just thinks I'm anti-fresh air.
Now the memory issues are a sensitive subject. Glenn's mother suffers from dementia as did his aunt and cousin. So I usually just collect his cellphone from the restaurant table and hand it to him when he starts searching for it 20 minutes after we've returned home.
Not that I should be smug. I went grocery shopping the other day for his parents and picked up lunch for them. When I got to their house, I put a pan of cookies in the oven, settled them at the table with their lunch, put away the groceries and left. Then I made a U-turn in the middle of the road and went back to retrieve the cookies from the oven.
