What Memory?

When I was younger I had a great memory. I could remember where my mom parked the car, I could remember long lists for the grocery store and as I got older, if my teacher gave us the information on what a test would cover, I could memorize all of it and ace the test. After school I became an avid reader and I could remember most of every book I read. I took in massive amounts of information, not all of it necessary and there was my downfall.

You see I have a theory about memory. I don’t believe that we use just 10% of our brain capacity, I believe the 90% we aren’t actively using to compute and think is storing information. That’s right, a giant memory disc. Now here comes the problem. There is a finite amount of space. Sooner or later the disc gets full. And then what, you say?

Well here comes the next part of my theory. I have spent years watching movies and gathering basically useless information. Don’t get me wrong, not all of it has been useless, but a good portion of my information intake has been pointless and entertaining to the say least. We live in an information age and I have drunk deep at the well. I have used up all my space. Yep, I’m full. So now when I try to put something new into the information database of my brain, something has to give.

I believe one of two things will happen. Option One: I try to put in some new information, say a phone number, an important task I need to accomplish Today or the name of a new acquaintance and what happens? There is no room, it doesn’t stick and passes right on through to the information junk yard in the sky. Bye bye. Option Two: I retain the information, but something has to be bumped out to make room for it. This is usually something equally important and I will miss it later.

All that being said, I have been very lucky. Lots of the information I have lost is unimportant. My husband and I will start to watch a movie and ten minutes later, yes ten, one of us will say, “Hey, haven’t we seen this before?” “Why yes, I believe we have, but I can’t remember the ending” Lucky for me, the endings of lots of movies, books and stories folks have told me got bumped and not the beginnings, otherwise I would watch the whole movie just to realize I know the ending right before it happens. Now I get to watch, read and listen to my favorites and not so favorites all over again. Another lucky break, I seem to have bumped the portion of my memory that holds the information on who I have told stories to. I get to tell my stories over and over again and never really know I am annoying countless people. that’s lucky. Sadly, numerous names of people I know have been lost, but gratefully not their faces. So I can look at them when I see them and know I know them, I just can’t address them by their given name. I just say politely, “How are YOU doing?” YOU get the picture.

As you get a little older and your memory banks start to fill up, don’t despair about what you may have lost, just look at it as an adventure you get to have over and over again. The great thing is, you’ll never know. YOU understand.