Forgetting Why I Walked Into The Kitchen

So dad forgot his own birthday yesterday and so did mom – both thanking me “for the reminder” – which is both sad and yet pretty funny and reminds me that the amount of things we forget isn’t always about our age or declining mental acuity as much as the underappreciated fact our brains are only so big. We forget a lot of things – some serious, like taking our meds, some possibly illegal, like forgetting to wear shoes to drive to the grocery store, and some good for a laugh, like forgetting where you and the wife hid the kid’s easter eggs only to find them a year later. Forgetting things has made its way into our social consciousness – there was an entire Seinfeld episode about Kramer forgetting where he parked the car and a movie about a guy trying to forget Sarah Marshall. I polled our audience of 63,000 teens and 13,000 adults and seniors for their take on forgetting and their answers were on one hand alarming, but on the other quite instructive. Nearly 1 in 5 seniors actually forgot that they had dementia at one point in the poll and nearly 40% said they often forget to drink water or even eat some days. A majority of moms said they have “tried to forget” the pain of childbirth and often forget to pick up the kids – “I know I’m supposed to be somewhere right now,” Stacey, mom of 3 from Arizona, told me during our interview. Nearly 70% of adults forget passwords more than anything, like 47-year-old Neil of Vermont who said he wrote down all his passwords on a yellow sticky but then forgot where he put it.  Teens don’t forget anything – or so they say – at least on things that matter to them.  “We selectively forget things,” 16-year-old Chloe of Nevada admits – like my own kids who seem to always forget to fill up the gas tank – though a large number sadly said they seem to be forgetting their place, identity, and purpose – particularly 17-20 year-old males who say they forget how they came of age on a ballfield, and forget how to talk to people without a phone. If there was one theme that struck me it’s how people with chronic disease like cancer or addiction seem to forget things differently. “I can’t remember the lyrics to Come on Eileen or even the name of the doctor who delivered my daughter…but I won’t ever forget the day I started being sober,” says Faye, 37, of Missouri. The amount of things I keep forgetting is expanding as I maneuver through the sandwich generation helping the kids transition from being lazy to adulthood and the parentals transition to 1-floor living.  Last night, I forgot to turn off my Volkswagen, but the good thing is it was nice and cool when I got into the car this morning, so I had that going for me, which is nice. I suppose it makes sense to not worry so much about the relatively small things we forget and try to remember the good stuff. Like last night, mom and dad may have forgotten pop’s birthday but they didn’t forget to play scrabble and mom didn’t forget to cheat so she could win.