Confessions of a Mental Black Hole

The great thing about getting senile is that life is full of surprises! My husband has found that he has a far greater number of amazing ideas now that he’s approaching 50 than he did just 10 years ago. Of course he’s had most of them previously--some more than once. But he seems so proud of himself--such a happy little smile on his face--that it’s hard to burst his bubble. Which is why I do it on my blog for a public audience. 

Assuming one has a sense of humor, the process of becoming feebleminded can be downright hysterical (and you can take that any way you want). We’ve all experienced the adventure of walking into a room, with great purpose in our stride, only to pull up short when we realize we have truly no idea why we looking into an empty dryer, or why we find ourselves staring a bar of soap, or what our garage has to do with making a Caesar salad. One Sunday I strode briskly and deliberately right up to my Golden Retriever...with my nine-year old’s tights. Oh. Wrong child.

Lately I have taken to telling my kids, by way of explanation for my not-quite-constant state of confusion, “It’s not my fault; I’m just getting old.” But my older daughter called me out on this. “Um, you’ve pretty much always been this way.” Where does being scatterbrained end and getting senile begin?  To tell the truth, I can’t remember. At times I feel that my mental vacuum is so intense that I am actually sucking reasonable or sound thinking out of the air for miles around me. 

My mother called me up one morning from her doctor’s office. She explained that she had locked her keys in her car and asked if I could drive her over to her apartment to get her spare set. Stopping in the middle of my morning routine, I jumped into my car and hurried down to pick her up from the doctor’s office and run her home. Upon pulling up to the curb outside her apartment, she thanked me again, and I replied that it was no problem. I courteously watched while she walked up the stairs to her apartment, and once she was safely (???) inside, I immediately drove off, reworking my morning schedule in my little pea brain. Moments later, my cell phone rang. It was my mother--what now? 

“Hey there--what’s up?” 

“Um, where did you go?” she asked.

“I’m on my way home,” I replied, trying to keep the tone of “duh” out of my voice.

“So...I need a ride back to the doctor’s office to get my car,” she politely reminded me.

Needless to say, we had a great laugh about that one! Laughed ourselves silly over it in fact--I laughed as I drove back to her apartment; we both laughed as she got in; we continued laughing as we drove back to the doctor’s office; and laughed further still...right up to the moment when she realized she had not locked her keys in her car at all, but had in fact left them in the doctor’s office.

All the bulbs burnt out in our family a long time ago....

Going senile has its downsides, for sure: Looking foolish; wasting time trying to remember things--or driving around Utah Valley for no reason; draining energy from the refrigerator while you stare vacantly into it, wondering if you even have a reason to have the door open (hint: there’s ALWAYS a reason to have the fridge door open). But as I think about it, there are some upsides, too. I just realized that the great thing about getting senile is that life is full of surprises! I love a happy ending!