Write It Down

When did it start to become a problem?  I never had trouble remembering lunch dates or dry cleaning or birthdays.  They were part of what I did each day, keeping track was a chore as much as the actual events were.

Then, I gave up my paper calendar for my smart phone.  I used to like choosing the paper, the way the weeks were laid out, the pictures I'd be spending my year eyeing.  There was space for random notes, smiley faces and frowns, fat markers denoting important events.  I can open the shoebox marked with the relevant year and tell you exactly what I was doing on this date.

I used to look back on them when I reorganized my treasures, those treasures my heirs will have to deal with once I am gone.  Now, I have to hope that the app recording my monthly activities will not vanish into the ether as technology changes.  There are no personal notes attached to Little Cuter's wedding or FlapJilly's birth day.... emoticons or emojii's don't carry that individual touch.

The physical act of writing the appointment seems to have made a difference in my ability to keep the facts in place.  I could close my eyes and try to imagine what the words looked like on the page.  It's not the same, trying to remember pixels.

I write this because Scarlet has been gone for three weeks and spent last week recovering and I miss her and I want to see her and I think we made plans but I can't remember and flipping through my calendar is more of a chore than emailing her and wondering if we did, in fact, have a date.

Perhaps it is old age, creeping in around the corners?  Perhaps I've decided that I have better things to occupy my brain than compiling statistics which can be easily retrieved, any time, day or night, with the tap of a fingertip?  Perhaps I was never that good at it, and my memory is tricking me, once again?  Pam Peterson, a friend of Seret and Mr. Dreamy Cakes, sums it up pretty nicely right here: