Not too long ago, on a day I’d like to forget but somehow can’t, I sat crumpled on the dining room floor sobbing. The bad kind of sobbing where your mouth is open but it takes eons for any sound to come out. A moment of complete despair. Not a good look, but I was distraught.

My husband raced over—was I choking? Did I just get a text message that the boys were in trouble?

Nope. My hot-pink plastic folder of favorite recipes was missing. For 12 years, I’d kept it in the same spot in the dining room, tucked in a storage basket. And now it was gone. I’d been on my hands and knees searching for almost an hour, but nada.

I was in full freak-out mode because this was the last straw that proved to me my mind was in a death spiral, that I’d entered some sort of Half-heimers stage.

I wasn’t hysterically crying because the folder contained some prize-winning secret recipe or because the recipes had been willed to me by a beloved grandmother.

I was in full freak-out mode because this was the last straw that proved to me my mind was in a death spiral, that I’d entered some sort of Half-heimers stage.

I’m one of those people with a steel-trap memory. I can recall what dress a friend wore to a party I gave 30 years ago. I can tell you my favorite line from a book I read in 8th grade. I can remember phone numbers so well that I don’t need to program anything into contacts.

But since I turned 50, my memory super-powers have been plummeting down to earth.

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The Dreaded Early Memory Loss

Now my conversations go like this:

“What’s the name of that actress—you know, the really pretty one…she was in a James Bond movie?”

“I’ll make the dinner reservation but remind me again—is your husband a vegetarian?”

“What was the thing I was supposed to get done before leaving work today?”

“Uh, why did I just walk into the kitchen?”

So not being able to find my prized fluorescent folder of recipes sealed the deal. How could I have misplaced it? It’s always in that basket. A-l-w-a-y-s.

I was clearly losing my mind and would soon be playing the Julianne Moore role in  Still Alice, except in real life.

While I try to adjust to the new normal of less memory firepower, I got to thinking, Wouldn’t it be great if I could choose what it was that I forgot?

I went to my doctor and shared my concern. She deployed some neurological tests and told me I was fine. My fuzziness, she told me, was typical of women at this life stage with hormones declining and responsibilities surging. We all know that expression “Sandwich generation” meaning we’re caught between caring for kids and our aging parents. A friend calls it the Panini Generation because we’re squished and held extra-close to the heat.

While I try to adjust to the new normal of less memory firepower, I got to thinking, Wouldn’t it be great if I could choose what it was that I forgot?

The Fugetaboutit List

For instance, I wish I could forget:

Where I hid the Cadbury Fruit and Nut Bars. I have a secret stash of these, and I go through them at an alarming rate. It would be better if I just didn’t know where they lived.

The price of the unreasonably expensive jeans I bought a few years ago that just don’t fit now, even though I swear I haven’t gained weight. It’s as if they shrunk a size or two while sitting in my closet. But I can’t bring myself to toss them because I have magical thinking that they will somehow fit again. Plus, I can’t admit defeat.

I wish I could forget the look of dismay on my neighbor’s face when she saw me in my shortie pajama set.

The lyrics to the following songs: “Heat of the Moment” by Asia; “Africa” by Toto; and “Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats. Make no mistake: I do not like these songs. Not a single one of them. But they somehow got encoded in the reptilian region of my brain and regularly surface and haunt me for weeks. It gets so bad that I try to rid myself of them by humming them around my husband, hoping they’ll transfer to him. But then we both just wind up with the horrid soundtrack repeating in our minds weeks on end. Misery does love company.

That I have to schedule a colonoscopy.

That I got into a Big Fight with my husband about how I leave the fridge door open when I cook dinner. If you’re  going to have a Big Fight, it should be about something that actually matters. Or at least the real issue behind the trivial trigger.

That I quite possibly have spent a few hundred dollars on boosters getting to level 1989 on Candy Crush Saga. OK, it may be closer to several hundred dollars. I’m somewhere between deep shame and humble bragging on this one.

Here’s something I really need to erase from my hard drive: The “kinda weird” sexual fantasy that a close friend felt compelled to share with me.

The look of dismay on my neighbor’s face when she spied me taking out the recycling in my purple, elephant print shortie pajama set. Preferable garb to an old-lady Lanz nightgown, I think, but perhaps I’m not the best judge.

To watch the 11 o’clock news. I’m a creature of habit and tune in every night. At this divisive moment in America, watching your local broadcast before bed is destined to keep you up with something close to a breathe-into-a-paper-bag anxiety attack—and then wake you up in a cold sweat at 4 AM

The “kinda weird” sexual fantasy that a close friend felt compelled to share with me. Because now every time I see her, I just think, Really? With Mr. Peanut

That I have to schedule a colonoscopy. Oh, wait a minute—did I already say that? I forget.

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