The Baboon Congress

Effective Forgetting

80 Comments

I was going to offer some pithy insight as an introduction to this intriguing post, but it has totally slipped my mind.
Today’s guest blog is by Jacque.

I guess I’m getting old. I can’t remember anything dependably anymore. My excuse is that the last two and a half years have been really stressful. My mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, that repository of forgetting all, in the fall of 2008. I had to clean out her house and assist the siblings with her future plans. That took 9 months. By the time that was over, my business changed with someone suddenly leaving and someone arriving to fill the void. That was stressful, too, as I tried to keep the business up and running. Then another person was on a maternity leave. Those transitions went on until 3 months ago. I’m still recovering. But it is like child birth, you forget the pain over time.

I call this “Effective Forgetting.” But I’ve forgotten both the pain and everything I should have remembered over that 2 ½ year period. Like where I put stuff that I want. Where did I put the charger to my cell phone’s little hands -free microphone? And what happened to my favorite black turtle neck, anyway?

This is disorienting to me. I have always have had a really good memory. I loved history of any kind and could reproduce those facts on a college essay test so accurately that I could be accused of cheating. I did not cheat. It was just interesting, so I remembered the facts. Like my father before me, I used to remember faces and names with such deadly accuracy that sometimes I pretended NOT to remember names or people. It is just too embarrassing to remember everyone. And not everyone wants to be remembered. Plus they often don’t remember me, which is even more embarrassing. Thankfully, age has removed some of that burden.

But lately my memory is inconsistent. I still know my high school friends’ birthdays and most of their childhood phone numbers:

Ruth: July 14.
Carol: April 13
Debbie: February 19
Mary Kay: October 22.

Since they were all born the same year I was born, I have conveniently and effectively forgotten the year we were all born. Thus I don’t have to really face the reason for my wandering memory – age.

So along comes the “blog ahead idea.” After BBC (Baboon Book Club—see link on upper right hand of this page. All are welcome!) on January 9 I was inspired by Anna’s idea about guest blogs. She writes blog entries ahead of the actual date needed in order to be prepared for the next request.

“What a good idea,” I thought. “I’m going to do that.”
“I have to write those down or I will forget. And when there is a request for guest blogs I can’t think of anything,“ I thought. This blog ahead idea really appealed to my inner Martha Stewart, that master of organizing and homemaking for money. Martha is on top of everything. And her assistant must have a great memory.

My husband, Lou who attended the BBC with me, and I were chatting about the meeting on the way home, so I forgot to write down the ideas. (His fault. He distracted me). And I forgot the ideas. Then I forgot I was even going to do some really clever blogs to have “in the bank.” So of course, within days of forgetting it all, Dale posts his next request for guest bloggers.

“Oh, yeah,” I thought. “I was going to write those, whatever they were. I forgot.”

I can remember those old birthdays, but I cannot remember those killer ideas that seemed so inspiring. So instead you get a blog entry about forgetting. I also never remember the calorie count of those cookies I should not have eaten or the pounds they put onto my hips. I’ll eat those same cookies again, given the opportunity. That is not Effective Forgetting because I have to turn around and take those calories away somehow.

What do you need to remember?

80 thoughts on “Effective Forgetting”

  1. Morning all! The big question is… do we have more trouble with our memories when we age because something is breaking down slowly in our brains, or have we just used up our available space? Like a hard drive with too much data. I always think about Albert Einstein who never memorized his own phone number because he didn’t want to clutter up his brain with information he could easily look up.

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    1. This is always the point I make when older friends talk about how terrible it is to grow old and lose their memory.

      When I was in grade school, most people needed to know their address and phone number (in small town Iowa, you dialed the last four digits-everyone has the same first 3 and the area code was something you used to call your out-of-state relatives once in a blue moon as long distance was Expensive).

      Now, we all have a home phone, a cell phone (both of which require 10 digits), each person in the family also has a cell phone, your home address, your internet address and any number of passwords and PINs.

      Even if you shun the internet, you still need a 10 digit phone number where 7 used to be enough and some sort of PIN, which should never be written down and only committed to memory.

      Sure, the computer remembers everything, but without your memory unlocking it in the first place, it keeps everything a closely guarded secret.

      I’m with Sherillee-it’s not loss, it’s overload.

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      1. what i dread – and i know this is happening already – is telling you about my loss of memory for the FOURTH TIME and forgetting i’d told you already. i see that little faint “oh gosh, should i tell her i’ve heard this already?” look in the eyes. oy.

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      2. Again, I think it is overload-so many distinct groups of friends-which ones have I told this to?

        Was it on the blog, at work, at church, parents’ group at school, the coffee shop gang? I’ve only got so many stories, I can’t come up with a new one every single time.

        I often find that exclaiming in delight-You were telling me about this – and then continuing the conversation saves some time and embarassment (I hope).

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  2. Funny you should ask, Anna…I have a new boss who has asked his team to meet for a conference call (I’m in Duluth and the rest are in St. Paul) at 10 am on Monday mornings. Yesterday was the first one. I rolled into work at 10:30, my usual time, to a phone message at 10:15 reminding me to check in…on top of that guilt was the knowledge I could have made it easily by 10 but had spent extra time reading a book, checking the TBB, adding thoughts and comments…so. To answer your question. I need to remember to be at work by 10 am on Mondays..EVERY Monday!

    But now it’s Tuesday and here I am reading and responding to the TBB. Good Morning, Babooners.

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  4. thanks, Jacque – i don’t think there’s any way you can fault yourself in forgetting things lately – lots of “things” spinning in your mind!
    like VS, i subscribe to the “disc full” theory of forgetfulness. the only problem i have with that is this: if something is to be purged, i’d like to have a say about what it is. seems my brain (and maybe Cynthia’s in Mahtowa) makes those decisions for me – willy nilly. it doesn’t give me selections like “biB, would you like to purge: 1. the chemical pathway malfunction that produces methylmalonic acidemia? or 2. the location of your Mother’s bank documents?” instead, it just deletes number 2 – without even so much as a “are you sure you want to delete this file?”

    a gracious good morning to You All, whoever you are – i forget 🙂

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    1. Ha ha… so funny. Reminds me of a commercial that ran a few years ago (a digital camera I believe, but can’t remember) where all kinds of characters (bride, safari hunter, kid on a bike) are all crammed together in a small room. Apparently they are the photos in the digital camera and someone has to get deleted before another picture can be taken and they are arguing among themselves. Suddenly the guy in the pith helmet disappears and everyone else breathes a sigh of relief!

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  5. If only we could defragment our memories to make room for more.

    Also, I would like to be able to be selective about what I choose to remember and forget. Bad seventies rock lyrics… I don’t need to remember those, but I do.

    Good morning, all.

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    1. OT – Equivoque -are you running in this bitter cold? i imagine once you get going, you warm up. but how do you get out of the house? i’m dreading the walk to the barn! it’s minus 20 here without wind chill.

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    2. If it were *only* rock lyrics from the 70s, it might not be so bad. It’s the commercial jingles from the 70s (see previous guest blog…from I forget which day…) that I wish I could selectively purge. Do I really need to know that with “Sun-In and sunlight, you can look blonder tonight,” or “oohey-gooey, rich and chewy inside, golden flakey, tender cakey outside…it’s the big Fig Newton!” Names of old friends or tasks I need to follow up on at work would be so much more useful.

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      1. Anna – I actually knew one of the guys who played the Fig Newton back in the 80s. It was a serious gig but in the bakery (he also worked part time as a delivery guy), he would get up on the big table and do his “fig” dance and sing the song. It was hysterical. Apparently the Fig Newton was so popular that there were about a dozen of them around the country who went to various events.

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      4. I don’t recall any roller skating, but this was a LONG time ago and I don’t remember. Ironic considering our topic today!

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  6. Really, I said something about writing blog posts ahead? That was me? Sounds right…but I forget.

    Yesterday I needed to remember to call a friend in the morning to wake her up, follow-up on a defect in need of fixing on the web site, and something else…none of these were remembered. I managed to remember my nephew’s birthday on Friday, but only just barely (and almost forgot my husband’s the month before…which is two days after my best friend’s). Hopefully today I will remember I need to buy dog food (Barney is sure to remind me if I forget).

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  7. Good morning to all,

    I have never been real good at remembering things. I was able remember those things I needed to know to get through graduate school, except for an organic chemistry course where I just couldn’t get myself remember all the details needed. In my night mares I am not able to remember important thing like where and when classes were being held, but I didn’t do this in real life.

    I have started making notes almost every day to remind me to do things and then I worry about forgetting to look at the notes. Usually I do check my notes. You wouldn’t think I would need a note to remind me to mail letters, but I do.

    Remembering names is probably my biggest problem. I think I have a tendency to have trouble remembering the names of people who I somehow dislike. I could give you some examples of names of people I dislike that I have forgotten if I could remember them. If I could recall the names of those people I dislike, it would probably be best if I kept those names to myself.

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  8. I do a lot of psychological testing of people with memory problems, and it is interesting to see what they can and do remember, even with impairments. My husband is a great list maker, and writes down all sorts of things he wants to remember. He writes downs so many things on the lists that we have to keep them when we get back from shopping since he has added so many other things to keep track of. Heaven help us if the list is lost, as he frets and fusses until it is found or he has reconstructed it. I could never understand why he did this, until recently, when he has admitted to life long attention and concentration problems that suggest mild ADHD. I have a pretty good memory, but find myself frustrated trying to all remember the details of stories my relatives have told me about the past and the family. I think I may have to start writing the stories down so they aren’t lost as I get older.

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  9. Despite lighter comments earlier, this is actually a frightening topic for me. My father had Alzheimers and it was awful watching him descend down that awful path. Even knowing that he had no control over it, it was difficult to deal w/ the fact that he could happily chat about his childhood friends, their pets but not be able to remember that you told him 5 minutes ago (& 5 minutes before that) what time we would be leaving for dinner. I still have a good memory, but it is clearly not what it used to be, and whenever I do have to struggle to remember something (especially someone’s name) I have this niggling little fear in the back of my brain.

    And, of course, I never could remember the Roman Numerals, which is a problem when I do crosswords!

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    1. If elected to Congress–Baboon Congress, that is–I promise to outlaw all French words and Roman numerals in crosswords.

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      4. Have mercy, those Roman numerals are the only thing that save me from my total lack of current pop culture references (but biB, Susan Lucci is always a good name if they are looking for soap stars-)

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    2. VS – I’m with you. I worry, since my dad had dementia, whether or not this might be in my future. My dad was a great maker of lists and writing things down; I still remember stopping by the house after I had been to the doctor’s office to confirm that I was pregnant and Dad saying, “I better write this down so I remember to tell your mother when she gets home.” It was bittersweet – clearly he recognized that it was big news, but he didn’t trust himself even with something that significant. What got really hard, was when he started losing words to describe things and connection to language – music stayed in the muscle memory, but language started to disappear (as I have, no doubt, talked about with BBC and mentioned in the essay I posted on the BCC site…). I worry about losing words most – words are dear to me and not being able to communicate the way I want scares the dickens out of me.

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    2. Oops, got a way from me… forgot what I was doing…

      I was always good at phone numbers; that 7 number pattern just stuck in my head… yeah… kinda lost that when cell phones came along. And what really got me was the ‘programmable keypad’. Kelly is #2. Son is #9. I still have no idea what his actual number is…
      And all the passwords now… here at work we switched to some new type of program for logging into ‘E-timesheets’ and payroll info… *smack my forehead*… had to call tech support on that cause all the scribbles on my post-it note weren’t making sense anymore. The guy laughed; yep, he said, he knew how that worked…
      What’s that old joke? Had to change my password now I’m gonna have to rename my dog…

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      1. PASSWORDS. Did you have to bring that up? GRRR.
        AND
        When I go to pay for gas out here I have to enter my zip code,a security check I presume and not a bad ideas. Except at first I kept misremembering my zip code.

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  11. you hit a favorite topic of mine. my memory is excellent but so short that you have to catch me while its intact. i used to memorize things like all the countries of the world an hour before the test because my retention could hang on that long. i teach my kids memorazation tricks and name association stuff. mozmbique may not even be around anymore over there by tanzania… my memory is cyclical and goes around until i come back to it. the guy that is my office organizer (i am the mad professor cooking up stuff to do and ways to do it and he is the guy who does what we need to do to keep feeding our families with these off kilter ideas) had an assistant for a while who was frustrated byt the fact that i strt on a topic then get diestracted and drop it never to return. the guy asked doug what the hell was going on with that and doug told him that i would come back to it in a couple of days if it was important in the mean time follow the current train of thought or it won’t get the proper attention. i love that. renee you talk about your husbands list writing for a suspected mild adhd, well when my kids got diagnosed with it the symptoms were described and i was like, well doesn’t everyone have that? i was informed that maybe i was a adhd guy too and that would explain all the teachers in elementary school ( oh those nuns) having such a challenge with me not sitting still in my chair and listening to all the gobbeldy gook coming out of their mouths. coulndn;t you just cut to the chase please and get on with it…memory is a challange. i have books and when i am going to meet the authors at a reading i would love to have the books they have written… no clue wher they might be. activities go on my phone calander or get missed plain and simple. im sure this will be buzzing around in my brain all day and i will have more to say later but then again who knows…

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  13. The quality of my memory tends to wax and wane in tandem with the quality of sleep I’m getting. My brain really, really needs good sleep to do anything well.

    I have a friend who told me about the troubles she was having adjusting to being a first-time mother. She had taken a three-month leave from work after her son was born, and had lined up a daycare after that. But she felt completely overwhelmed by the 24-hours-a-day schedule and didn’t know if she could do it for three whole months. So she called the daycare and asked them, just hypothetically, what if she wanted to move up the start date for her daycare arrangement? They told her that would be fine, just to give them three days’ notice. After that she felt better, knowing that there was another option if she really reached the end of her rope, and she went the full three months and stuck with the original start date for the daycare.

    A number of years later, about the time the second child was starting kindergarten, I mentioned that episode…and I had to explain the story just as I wrote it to you, because she has absolutely no memory that this ever happened.

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    1. i have many conversations i am told, that i have no recollection of, not even a scant trace of maybe i can kind of remember something. i got nothin. it concerns me a bit but i bet i will forget about it

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      1. Part of my wife’s lupus is loss of conversations and even events from 2-4 days ago. I have learned in most instances to underplay it. She either remembers a conversation and most of its content or completely loses the conversation, or event.

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      3. Okay. What you should do, If you want to be selective, is claim you have poor hearing. I don’t want to seem insensitive to people with poor hearing, but some times I think there is selective hearing among those who say they have poor hearing. Maybe the selective hearing is something I have experienced a lot because I tend to talk too much and get tuned out.

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      4. As one with a non-ear related hearing issues, as well as an ear issue, it is sort of as you say, Jim, but it’s also the question of how much energy I feel like investing in listening, if I want to focus all on listening or not.

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      5. I think I know what you are saying, Clyde. I know that there are times when I think I am being ignored when there really is a good reason why someone can’t hear me and I’m not just being ignored.

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  14. Sorry I haven’t posted recently. I’m dealing with a lot of stuff.

    In many regards, my memory is better than it ever was. The process of writing a book about my parents was amazingly restorative for my memory. First, I learned that my memories of stories from my childhood are almost perfectly reliable. Second, I found that reclaiming one old memory often brought with it associated memories, so the effort to recall things began to accrue results like compound interest on a credit card charge. Finally, it is clear that memory is a muscle. Use it or lose it.

    I understand now that memory is a word like “snow” or “cancer” . . . by which I mean that one word actually refers to so many different types of thing. I have a prodigious memory for stories, but I’m unable to remember people whom I met casually. My former wife can’t remember anything about pheasant hunts we took together, but she remembers virtually every little fact about people we had dinner with once in the 1970s. My memory is a Wurlitzer jukebox loaded with old records; her memory is akin to the internet.

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    2. Here is an example of some of what I wrote above. I can’t recall much at all about my junior high school years. On the whole, I think that is a case of forgetfulness being a kind of mercy. Those aren’t years I’d enjoy remembering.

      But I had an odd tickle of memory a few days ago. I remembered lines from some silly chant. After trying hard to remember, I got it:

      Ish biddeldy oh boaten, bo bo skeedooten daddle
      Ish biddledly oh boaten, wah dah chah
      Boomalacka boomalacka shiss boom bah
      Manchester High School, rah rah rah!

      It is, of course, a cheer that saluted the efforts of high school athletes in the 1920s when my mother was a girl. Now I remember her entertaining the family by reciting this old cheer. She only told us about this one time, I’m sure, and that was close to 60 years ago.

      Memory can be as quirky as it is amazing.

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  15. I experienced significant memory challenges earlier this year. It crystallized when the woman at the Chinese restaurant showed me pictures of her white but not albino dogs. She was impressed that I could explain to her why the dogs had 2 different colored eyes. I was totally freaked out because I could not remember the name of the human syndrome with the same signs.
    This lapse finally sent me to my new wonderful physician with my fear that this was the latest manifestation of depression I had never admitted before. He was wonderfully supportive and helpful except when he said, “It’s better that you forget things you know rather than recent things because I’d have to worry that you have Alzheimer’s.”
    With a little intervention I have no problem remembering that the dogs had the equivalent of Wardenberg Syndrome, but I cannot remember where I put my immersion blender.

    Stay warm!

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    1. i went in a told my homeopath of my memory not being able to organizeall the stuff i need to and she told me i was not just getting old but expecting too much of my fragile brain, relax take notes pay atttention to the important stuff and have a nice life was her suggestion

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  16. The twelve year old has a great head for figures and dates and all sorts of astronomical details, but if the lunch box is not right on top of the backpack in the same place right by the door, forgeddaboudit.

    My mother is not so much suffering from memory loss as she has never really been about to hear very well (even with 2 surgeries and 2 hearing aids), and so has gotten in the habit of never really listening.

    I, on the other hand, have a frighteningly good memory for most things, and so am often accused of “imagining” things that I very well remember.

    Maddening.

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      1. Very interesting question. If you mean you have the ability to recall things, that would seem to be a good thing. If you mean you dote on the past too much, that would not be so good. In general, I can’t see a problem with the ability to recall a great deal from your past.

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      3. Does the persistence of detail prevent you from using your memory in the ways you choose? That is, are you so hung up on detail that you can’t see the forest for the trees? If not, I don’t see the probolem.

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    2. The s&h is probably more like other kids than you might guess. Many of us (maybe even all of us) need a lot of experience to create little habits that help us remember things. Kids don’t have those habits, which are a learned ability, and so they leave their jacket at the basketball game, they leave a cell phone at a buddy’s house, etc. That’s not necessarily a judgment on any kid’s “memory,” just an example of how being young is often not a fun thing.

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  17. HI All:

    Just checking in from London, that center of all things financial. The city reeks of $$$$. Went to the Tate Modern this afternoon. Husband is sick! Otherwise all is well. Sunny and about 40 degrees today–looked on google and see it is -1 today.

    Home tomorrow night.

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    1. I was in London once for a few days. Lots to see of course. I remember having tea with little tea treats, beer in a pub, and breakfast with a broiled tomato, bangers, and toast in a toast holder.

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      2. I’ll keep my eyes out for one for you. They were in all the antique shops in northern Virginia and I know I gave one to a friend for Christmas once.

        I think they look lovely, but I want my toast right out of the vintage toaster (1957 is vintage, isn’t it?) so the necessary quantities of butter can really melt in.

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      5. We have one of those toast holder that we bought in England. I also like my toast straight out of the toaster so I also never use the holder.

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    2. Your trip tops mine. Yesterday Sonoma and wineries and relatives. Today the Winchester mansion and some things in San Jose.

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  18. I’m looking at a little magnet my sister gave me that says I know I came into this room for a reason. That pretty much sums it up, it’s too full up there and not room for that much more, is what I’d like to believe. But then they tell us we only use 10% of our brain capacity… I like tim’s homeopath’s suggestion to relax take notes pay atttention to the important stuff and have a nice life. Who do you go to, tim?

    Like Jacque, I’ve had great ideas for future guest blogs that I was sure I’d remember, and like a dream, poof, gone bye bye. Like Steve, I can remember lyrics to almost anything I heard once as a little kid, like on the Ed Sullivan Show or something, but can’t necessarily what Husband told me yesterday. And like Jim, what I often remember about a new place is the food.

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    1. val ohanian is the big cheese at the homeopathic practitioners and the homeopathic college. she is excellent and has put together a good crew on 169 and 55

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  19. People might enjoy a random memory I’ve carried in my head since my dad told me the story in the 1950s. A high school kid had a friend who bought a Harley. The friend said the kid could take his bike for a spin any old time; he always left th keys in the ignition when he parked it. One day the kid saw the Harley parked next to the Sportsman’s Bar, so he sat on it and turned the key. One kick got the motor spinning, and the kid was rolling down the alley toward Douglas Avenue.

    Just as he got there, a large delivery truck turned into the alley, blocking the way out. In his panic, the kid couldn’t remember how to stop the Harley. He looked about in terror. There was an open doorway, so he performed an emergency left turn and heeled the Harley through the opening. That was the back door of what we called “The Gas Office.” The gas company had a large showroom encased in plate glass windows, and in it they displayed gas ranges, refrigerators, etc. When the kid came roaring into the gas office, he was surrounded by a lot of plate glass. Shoppers were diving for shelter left and right behind appliances. When the manager of the gas company heard the motorcycle roaring in his showroom, he dove under his desk, convinced that “The Russians are coming!” To avoid smashing a window, the kid aimed the Harley at a staircase leading upstairs. He got halfway up it before the motorcycle stalled and fell backward.

    I had a chance to test my memory when I returned to Ames four years ago to appear before their historical society. I told my hosts the story, and then we drove that alleyway to see if the events Dad described to me could possibly have happened. And then there it was: a doorway opening on the alley, just wide enough and with a low enough threshold that a terrified kid on a Harley could have roared into the Gas Office that way.

    Tell me a good story, and it is like it goes into a vault forever, no matter how unlikely it seems.

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  20. Honestly – I can’t remember the last time I forgot something.

    I’m kidding. I forget everything. Here’s a conversation I had with my brother at Christmas: (He talks first.)

    I have KRS.
    KRS – what’s that?
    Kan’t remember sh*t.
    Nah – you have CRS.
    CRS – what’s that?
    Beats the sh*t outta me! Let’s go have a beer.

    There you have it – the all purpose memory-loss cure. Beer.

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    1. You guys are funny…
      Reminds me of another joke:

      “I believe in the hereafter– Everytime I walk into a room I wonder what I’m here after….”

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