We didn’t start from here

Most of us go through life contradicting ourselves daily, not there’s anything wrong with this because, in my view, it’s just part of the human condition.

For example, whether we’re four, forty-four or eight-four years of age, we all tend to operate on a daily basis as if we are not only eternally youthful but also immortal – neither of which, of course, is the case – but (well, when we get past a certain age) simultaneously noting the things we can no longer do, or do to the same degree of excellence as we once could, and doing our best to accept the limitations gradually, ever so gradually, being imposed upon us by our seniority.

Overnight I read an interview with BBC journalist Frank Gardner conducted by Boudicca Fox-Leonard as appears on the website today of the –  see here – DAILY TELEGRAPH

In it he passes on a piece of advice given to him by a psychiatrist – “Don’t expend emotional energy on the things you can’t do anymore. It’s about the things you can do” – which struck a bit of a chord with me.

Since his disablement Frank had been using it as motivation to achieve as many different and adventurous things as he can from a wheelchair. More power to him.

However, I took a somewhat different lesson from it – i.e. that if you can’t do something anymore, be strong … identify it, accept it … and then simply concentrate upon things that you think you can do (even if from time to time you cannot remember what they are)!

Here’s a list of some of the things I’ve noticed increasingly over the past two or three years.

I have to sit on the edge of my bed to pull on my underpants, trousers and socks when getting dressed.

My proof-reading skills, never brilliant, are getting worse.

At the computer keyboard, when typing, increasingly I’m either transposing individual letters more often than formerly, possibly due to ‘senior moments’ or dementia-onset-related issues … or else, alternatively, there’s something technical gone wrong with my keyboard which means that some letters (once pressed) now take longer to appear on the screen than others, thereby causing the same effect.

I’m getting clumsier than I was. These days not infrequently I either drop utensils, mugs, jars or cutlery in the kitchen or else – having collected and then placed them on a surface, next intend to do something somewhere else and (as I move to do that) somehow leave my hand behind and unintentionally clip, or let go of, them … which causes them to fall over, or drop onto the table top or floor and break and/or cause a mess.

Increasingly I find that whenever I identify a specific task to do – and/or go into another room to collect something terribly important – by the time I begin applying myself to it, or indeed get wherever I was going to collect it – I cannot remember what it was. Or that it takes a real effort to do so.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I have put something somewhere and can never find it again.

This has even happened when in advance I’ve said to myself “Now – I’m determined not to put this somewhere I am not going to be able to remember. So I’m going to put this somewhere very secure, readily identifiable, where I know it will be safe …” (and then subsequently have completely forgotten where that was).

I always have at least one nap – and sometimes two if I need it – per day. I could also set an alarm by the fact that, without fail, somewhere between 7.30pm and 8.00pm, I am suddenly going to begin feeling very weary indeed which is my signal to go off to bed.

Whatever I am doing at the time, whenever a phone rings – whether it be the land-line, which I rarely use anyway, or the smartphone – I instinctively bellow in exasperation “Oh, for xxxx’s sake! Why do people keep ringing me?!?” because taking a phone call always interrupts whatever I was focused upon doing at the time.

And then – at least 80% of the time – the phone call turns out to be a junk call, or from someone that I was/am very much indifferent about speaking to at all (or at least upon this particular occasion), so then I’m trapped speaking to them for however long this takes before I am able to resume what I was really trying to do … and by time which also – quite possibly and/or inevitably – I have lost the ‘zone of concentration’ I was in before they rang me.  [And for some reason the more urgent the task I was engaged upon, the more frequent the phone or other interruptions I tend to suffer from].

As it happens last night I went off into the countryside to have a meal with my daughter and her partner.

At this I attempted to be on ‘high alert’ and in tune with (what passes for) my most people-friendly degree of social behaviour and chattiness.

I do this because I know my daughter monitors me for forgetfulness and/or lack of concentration … and has in the past suggested several times that I should take a test for dementia because she is concerned that I may be suffering from it.

This subtle attempt to ‘cheat the examiner’ did not achieve the intended. Even as I was speaking last night, on several occasions I was acutely conscious that I was talking complete gibberish.

At one point – when talking about the process of seeking out a new (well, pre-owned) car to consider buying – I actually heard myself referring to “a banged-out old clapper” when I had meant to say “clapped-out old banger”.

That wasn’t the only time, either. Looking back today, I should estimate I emitted conversational rubbish at least half a dozen times last night – and cringed every time I did. It’s one thing when you get told by other people (even loved ones) that you brain might not be working as it once did … and quite another when you begin noticing it yourself – indeed, a bit worrying!

That said, my audience appeared to give no sign of registering my ‘lapses’ – but then again, I wasn’t there after I’d left, of course, to hear whether – as soon as I had driven away – they began openly gossiping about how ga-ga I’d become!

Ah, well – that’s life, I suppose … better get on with it …