Long term vs short term memory: What did I do with my glasses?

Last week I had lunch with one of my closest college friends. We first met fifty-five years ago when we lived a few doors from each other in our freshman dorm. There’s a lot of history between us—lots of fun and more than a few dangerous times.

It had been over two years since we had last seen each other. We spent the first part of the meeting catching up—illnesses, kids, grandchildren and more illnesses. The kind of the normal stuff folks in our age range talk about.

Then we began reminiscing about people we went to school with. I told him about someone who lived on our dorm floor that had died a few days earlier. He didn’t remember him. I next brought up someone else from that era. He didn’t remember her either. When the same thing occurred with a third person, I told him “It’s good that you all still have me around because I remember everything from back then.” He laughed and agreed and then I said “But I’ll forget what we had for lunch by the time I get home.” Yeah, it’s cliche, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of truth in it.

I truly am the go-to guy for people who have questions about when and where an obscure photo was taken, the date of a game, or a special event. It’s happened more than a few times with more than a few people. Occasionally, I’ll bring something up and the person I’m telling the story to will give me a look like they have no idea what I’m talking about, but they still believe it because they know I remember it. Not only can I remember it, but it’s usually so clear in my mind that I have obscure details about it.

I’m not exactly sure how I do this. It may be that I have an excellent long-term memory or that I’m very good at putting things in a particular time frame and then going from there to figure out the what, where, and when of the thing. It’s probably a combination of both.

But, after getting back home from lunch, I noticed that I had forgotten to take my morning meds—and the meds from the day before. This occurs rarely—thank goodness—but it does occasionally happen.

If it were only that, that would be okay—but it’s not. Sometimes I’ll walk into the shower wearing my glasses. Other times I’ll get in the car and try to start it without having the fob in my pocket. Talking about cars, not only do I forget where I parked at a mall, but I’ve more than occasionally walked into the wrong car. A couple of years ago, I walked into a similar-looking Lexus SUV—with the person who owned that car watching. When I pointed out my car, she laughed. I laughed too, but I did tell her that people are getting shot and killed for doing that—good times.

But here’s what made me worried—I was having problems with words. There are times I can’t come up with the actual word for a common thing. The one that scared me was when I couldn’t remember the word ‘table.’ Seriously!! I can recall a girl I met in 1970 and rarely saw afterward, but I couldn’t remember a table?

There were a couple of good things about this: at least I recognized this and then I did something about it by telling my neurologist.

She wasn’t as concerned as I was. It was probably an age-related thing—probably. When I told her about how great my long-term memory was compared to this she again said it was again probably an age-related thing—probably. But, she did say if I wanted to be sure everything was okay, she would arrange for me to do some testing with a memory specialist. Naturally, having a compulsive personality, of course, I took her up on it.

The test was three hours of a guy asking complex questions and me trying to tell him what the key points of each question were. A few weeks later they had me back for the results. He said there were some memory issues but nothing to be concerned about because IT WAS AGE RELATED!! He also said that if I wanted to do something to make my brain sharper to do ‘brain games’, like jigsaw or word puzzles. When I told him about how my long-term memory was better than ever, he said that was normal—and to quit worrying about this—he really didn’t know me!!

We’re now a few days past the lunch with my friend. So far, I’ve managed to avoid any short-term disasters. My glasses haven’t been in the shower and I’ve been able to find my car in the mall where I walk each day—although I do have to think about it. Phew! However, I never did take that one pill I should have last night. Sigh!!

And about the food I had during lunch with my friend—I’m not quite sure what I had to eat. It was either a burger or a flatbread pizza—I can’t quite remember. But ask me about it again in five to ten years—-I’m positive I’ll know it by then.