Short-Term Fuse Blow
I feel like the power to part of my brain went out. Like some freak storm (looking at you, Hurricane Irene) came in and took down some pretty important electrical lines. The little worker robots in my brain are boiling water just in case stuff got contaminated in the process. Thanks, little robots. I’m pretty sure stuff is contaminated.
The big circuit blew a few days before the New Year, when I misplaced my new, expensive GPS watch. The where-I-saw-it-last to when-it-went-missing mind rope I constructed leaves an open window of only 10-15 minutes. Surely I could figure out what I did with something in a 10-15 minute window. I assure you, I cannot. It’s as if my brain clicked over to half-power mode as I went through a pretty standard morning routine; all memory files associated with search terms ‘waking up earlier than I want to’ are automatically deleted.
Then two days ago, a second circuit popped. I arrived at my apartment building to find no apartment keys on my keychain. This time I have no mental timeline to trace. I sent the little robots to work and they found zero files on hand that matched ‘keys + removed + keychain’. The only time I ever remove my apartment keys from my keychain is when I tie them to my running shoes for a run through town, which I haven’t done in three or four days (see: missing GPS watch). Mind you, I do have multiple memories of using my keys to come and go from my apartment in the last three to four days.
Ironically enough, I’ve known about my short-term memory issues for years and because of it create long-standing habits for valuable belongings. The GPS watch lives on my wrist, or on top of my dresser—left corner ONLY; I ONLY take my apartment keys off my keychain at the door near the hook where they live, and clip them back on my keychain at the door immediately when I return. My systems rarely fail me.
I hope this is the end of my mental blips. I hope the power can be restored and I can carry on with a lackluster, yet functional short-term memory. Material items are replaceable, but feeling out of control is uncomfortable—and scary. Time to instill a new system: a method to differentiate a full power vs. half power mind, and a way to remove my half powered self from handling expensive devices.
The big circuit blew a few days before the New Year, when I misplaced my new, expensive GPS watch. The where-I-saw-it-last to when-it-went-missing mind rope I constructed leaves an open window of only 10-15 minutes. Surely I could figure out what I did with something in a 10-15 minute window. I assure you, I cannot. It’s as if my brain clicked over to half-power mode as I went through a pretty standard morning routine; all memory files associated with search terms ‘waking up earlier than I want to’ are automatically deleted.
Then two days ago, a second circuit popped. I arrived at my apartment building to find no apartment keys on my keychain. This time I have no mental timeline to trace. I sent the little robots to work and they found zero files on hand that matched ‘keys + removed + keychain’. The only time I ever remove my apartment keys from my keychain is when I tie them to my running shoes for a run through town, which I haven’t done in three or four days (see: missing GPS watch). Mind you, I do have multiple memories of using my keys to come and go from my apartment in the last three to four days.
Ironically enough, I’ve known about my short-term memory issues for years and because of it create long-standing habits for valuable belongings. The GPS watch lives on my wrist, or on top of my dresser—left corner ONLY; I ONLY take my apartment keys off my keychain at the door near the hook where they live, and clip them back on my keychain at the door immediately when I return. My systems rarely fail me.
I hope this is the end of my mental blips. I hope the power can be restored and I can carry on with a lackluster, yet functional short-term memory. Material items are replaceable, but feeling out of control is uncomfortable—and scary. Time to instill a new system: a method to differentiate a full power vs. half power mind, and a way to remove my half powered self from handling expensive devices.