"..........I miss my mind the most."

  



   Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."





I know you won't believe this, but those words hung on a plaque in the  psychiatric unit of a local hospital.
I would go into that area from time to time to see how the staff were doing and I always gazed at that plaque.
I never ever saw any patient looking at that plaque!
But the staff seemed to enjoy the plaque and since some of the staff were sometimes patients, I concluded that the plaque was "ok".

Now that I am on this unearthly landscape where I have landed as an old person (having not died young after all), I think of that plaque a lot.

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most.

This is a time in life of increased losses.  Yep, we've always had some losses to deal with, but just as earthquakes really have increased, so have our losses increased here in the twilight zone of life.

I do miss my young mind......brain, if you will.  It used to have such a good Servo-Mechanism in it that allowed me to have habits such as brushing my teeth without thinking, locking the doors, finding my way to Target without thinking, stopping for Red, going for Green, putting the milk back in the fridge, picking up little useless things I have dropped, knowing what time it is without looking at the clock, eating on schedule, turning on the curling iron after I have plugged it in, turning off the iron when I am done, ........oh just lots and lots and lots of "little housekeeping items of life" that a part of my brain took care of for me for decades and decades. That part of my brain seems to be on vacation now a lot of the time!  

Now I have to CONSCIOUSLY remember all the little things I need to do to run my life.  I can do it, but wow, does it take time and energy!   And sometimes I fall down on this job!  It is not that I think about locking the front door and then forget to....it is I don't even think about it at all.  No reminder sparking up from the old Servo-Mechanism.
                  ************************
Hope your Servo-Mechanism is still working well!




Thanks for checking on me,
Riverwatch