In truth it’s neither starting nor subtle. The inevitable old age memory errors are becoming more common. Sometimes it’s struggling to find the right word and sometimes it’s forgetting what I was doing mid-task but most commonly it’s forgetting to do things but I was supposed to do or bring things that I was supposed to bring. And that’s not new in any way but it is more frequent. Or at least I think it is because I don’t really remember. That’s an old memory joke but it fits. 

There are two things that make me not worry about it too much. The first one is that both the people I live with are older than me and have already been experiencing these problems at an increased rate as well so as long as they keep forgetting things I don’t feel so bad. 

The other one is meth. There’s no way to determine whether my forgetfulness is part of life. The part that I have been expecting since I was in my late 30s. My two grandparents on my mother’s side and both my parents ended their lives with misery and almost no memory of who they were or anything. It’s a tragic thing to experience as a spectator or as a son or as the person going through it I suppose. 

In the beginning it made my father very angry because he was an obsessive man and not being able to remember how to do things he used to do was not just frustrating but angering. Of course he was an angry man anyway so that just accelerated it. So in a way I have always figured I would have bad memory problems as I aged 

Realistically I’ve had bad memory problems in my whole life because I don’t have autobiography memory. I forget the official term but it is emotion-based memories are not easily recalled. Actually very little of my memory can be recalled by me. Needs external sources I have a good memory I just have terrible recall I used to say it’s the files are there but the file system is Windows 95 It’s hard to remember things that don’t have an emotional keyword but if someone else brings them up sometimes I remember. 

The memories I have are very non-emotional. I could draw the floor plan of every school I’ve been in and probably a lot of the houses I visited but I don’t have any memories of Christmas or birthdays or Halloween or my family really. The little things that I do remember are actually stories that have been told rather than the events themselves. 

So what I’m experiencing now could very well be that or it could be meth so having both options available to me I can always pick the other one depending on the crowd I’m talking to. 

I don’t remember what I was actually going to blog about but it’s New year’s Day and traditionally the entire holiday season from November onward is something I try to avoid and is very depressing but it wasn’t bad this year. I don’t watch much TV anymore and I hyper focus on programming with an AI companion and I love that as a challenge and as a distraction so I didn’t hear any Christmas carols and I didn’t see any Christmas movies and I didn’t watch any Christmas commercials. It was nice. Then we had a nice Christmas dinner and $7 worth of gifts that I gave out and about $50 worth of food that I received in which was great because I don’t feel as guilty as when people buy fully realized gifts that I have to pretend to enjoy. 

I have one friend in town and I almost saw him for the holidays came close to seeing last night for New year’s Eve but he’s very much like me and okay with cancellations as far as I can tell. Because I don’t have a car I don’t see him all that often but we chat online occasionally usually most days although it’s not anywhere near the same level of friendly chat that Derek and I used to have. 

But in general I’ve been pretty happy. I do my best to not think about the guilt of living in someone else’s house by not by force is not the word I mean but they are forced they are trapped and have come close to accepting that because what are you going to do? 

I try not to think of it for the rest of my life but I don’t really foresee any way out. That reminds me I was supposed to do my welfare fill out yesterday and the day before and two weeks ago and last month. That’s definitely not the math because of always avoided things. I was even diagnosed with something avoidance disorder or something very similar to that anyway…

Happy New Year to me and I mean it.