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For most of us, some memory loss is just a natural part of aging. My memory, however, was never great. As a child my poor memory gave me poor spelling grades, and the poor grades gave me a fear of words. And so, while I had a secret dream of being a writer, it was many years before I actually wrote.
As I grew older, I read books on how to improve my memory. I got more sleep and avoided stressful situations, both of which can impact our memory retention. Neither helped. I heard that coordinating smells could trigger memories so I sat in the Italian restaurant as I studied — and gained 10 pounds.
Then I heard that if you maintain the same position when you are trying to retrieve the information you memorized, your memory would be easier to reach. I sat in the same position until my back hurt and I had to reach for a Tylenol. But I still couldn’t remember what I was trying to remember.
Chewing gum was next. I’d read that steady movement of the jaws leads to increased blood flow and therefore enables more brain activity. That didn’t work for me either. All I did was lose a tooth filling. In high school, as hard as I tried to memorize, I got a failing 32 on the French final. Passing was 65. Knowing that a foreign language was required for college, I gave up all hopes of attending. Overall, I felt so stupid.
Fortunately, one advisor knew of my artistic abilities and urged me to register. “Take Chinese. Half of Chinese is drawing the characters and you can draw,” she said. She was right. I did and I pulled four semesters of Bs in that language.
Each time my friends and I discussed books, I’d have to refer to the characters by their visual descriptions. I could remember things like the woman with the red hair, or the man with the twitch, but I could never remember their names. Dates and places were worse. Strangely though, I could remember almost all of the incidents that had occurred in the stories and descriptions of the places mentioned.
Although more than 60 years have passed since I entered Chinese 101 and only two Chinese sentences remain in my word memory bank, I did learn something of great importance. I learned that I am not stupid. I just learn differently, and that’s okay. I’m not alone. I had been struggling with the verbal side of my brain, the weaker side, instead of concentrating on my dominant side, the one that used vision. My brain doesn’t retain information — unless I see it.
For decades, it wasn’t part of our now normative culture to recognize that there are different types of intelligence. If you were book smart or good in mathematics you fit into the academic norm. Those of us with the capacity to think in images and pictures often had our talents overlooked. So, I lived with unfounded feelings of self-doubt and incompetence despite my achievements.
Fortunately, we now know that not all intelligence can be measured by traditional standardized tests. In 1983, Howard Gardner proposed the theory of multiple intelligences in his book Frames of Mind where he broadens the definition of intelligence and outlines several different types of intellectual competencies including word smart, number/reasoning smart, picture smart, body smart and music smart.
Now that I’m 81, my friends are beginning to catch up to me with their own age-related memory lapses. And I no longer feel the need to compensate for my shortcomings.
We are finding that our time together is more fun because there are perks to our limited memories. We can retell the same jokes without our kids saying, “Mom, you told me that before.” We can sing along to music that young people have never heard. We can share secrets because none of us will remember what was said. And we can fill in the blanks for each other and laugh at our lapses.
We also love watching old movies and TV shows together. When one comes on, the music at the beginning will trigger our memories and we’ll find ourselves reciting the opening lines. Still, when we’re discussing old movies and I can’t remember one, rather than trying to add to a conversation, I’ve learned to be a listener. And I’ve learned that listening makes the other person feel heard.
As psychologist Tara Travia told me last July at the annual Mensa gathering in Kansas City, Missouri: “Memory is a fragile, fleeting and unreliable thing, but the feelings that are related to it, the body’s experience of the past, is more reliable and often persistently more valid.”
I remember the first time I chewed bubble gum and made a bubble. I was five, and sitting on my tricycle near a tree. Each time I wanted to blow another bubble I needed to get on my tricycle and return to the same tree or I couldn’t do it again.
While having a bad memory can be frustrating, it’s important to know that memory issues aren’t always a sign of a serious problem. In a 2021 interview with Dr. Sanjay Gupta, on CBS Sunday Morning, the bestselling author and neurosurgeon was featured in a segment on fighting dementia. He stated in the interview, that “forgetting where you left your keys is simply age-related. But forgetting what they were for might require a check-in with your doctor. Forgetting your friends’ names is also age-related and quite common. But forgetting the names of family members might be a problem that requires further investigation."
That is unless you’re like my family on the West Coast. It is quite large and the new babies coming along are all being given long foreign-sounding names.
“How do you remember their names,” a friend asked.
“Simple,” I said. “I call them all sweetie, or sweetie pie.”
Do you think that YOUR memory is getting worse? Do you do anything about it? Let us know in the comments below.
Tara Anand
Follow Article Topics: Health
