Tongue-Tied and Twisted... Are Our Brains Really Shrinking?

My third round of "momnesia" —
belly front and center

I just read an article about how we lose a little bit of brain power every day. Apparently, as we get older, our brains get smaller. And mothers have “momnesia.”  So considering I’m an older mom, my rate of brain loss is probably double than yours. Hmmm… and all this time I thought it was stress. If I get rid of the stress, my momnesia will be cured! Well, it turns out the only way to get mo-mom-memory back is not ginkoba, it’s walking, three times a week. 

And this goes for mo-male-memory, too. 

This memory thing got me thinking. And I have to admit it hurt. But I did it anyway. If my brain is shrinking, then surely it would explain so many of the things that have been happening to me lately. Like forgetting my exit on the way home from anywhere. I just get so caught up in the concert I am giving myself in the car, that I forget to get off the highway. After all, you know life is a highway, and I want to ride it all… night… long. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) The truth is, most of the time I don’t even make it out the door to the car, because I always forget where I put my keys. Thankfully I never forget the kids.

But I also say things that are so weird. I twist words and meaning, and nothing comes out the way I first thought it in my head. “Put your sheets on,” was me telling my daughter to get ready for school. One time I blurted “Sing it out!” in a restaurant. But there wasn’t any music. And no one was talking, either. It was in my head. And here’s something I say almost hourly: “Give me that thing that’s behind the thing in that thing on the thing (finger snap snap). UGH, you know what I mean!” “MOM, WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?!!” Yeah, that’s how it typically goes down. My husband, he usually stares and waits patiently… then comes out with a snarky, condescending comment. “Now, use your words.” Smart ass. Yet, somehow I always beat him in Scrabble. The game may take up to a week, but I’ll beat him.

Snarky husband 

My head really does hurt. I’m not kidding on that one. I put my finger up to my head and rub it just to jostle the thought I had exactly one second prior because it no longer exists, and I am left to stare at some familiar object that I can’t remember the name of (keys), all while my hand is clutching it. I get completely upset with myself.

Sometimes my speech is like an iPhone text blood bath when it auto-corrects your words. My husband showed me some chain email from a popular blog that was going around recently featuring people’s text mistakes. I was CRYING with laughter because I do that on a daily basis.  I am reading it now with tears just streaming. CLICK HERE! It’ll make your night.

But seriously, why, WHY do I do these things? I can’t blame it all on age. Take this story. A little over a week ago I went out with the girls. We were celebrating a birthday at a karaoke bar. We got talking like girls do, and one was recounting her dog’s death, something to which I can certainly relate. Hers had reached the end of his long, lovely life, but she still couldn’t imagine life without him. Mine had a seizure disorder. One minute my doggy was going through the seizure; the next she was gone—all while I was on the phone with the vet. You can just imagine the deathbed pose. (These are the images that keep you up at night.) Ok. Enough about the sad.

Now this girl is a fun, rockin’ chick. So I picked out a rockin’ song I knew she could just kill, you know… to take her mind off things. I really wanted to help her. “You should do this one,” I said, giving her the karaoke book. She took one look at the book and one look at me. I grabbed the book back. Florence and the Machine. What’s wrong with that? I thought. Then I saw the title: “The Dog Days Are Gone.”

Now, I can’t tell you why this happened, but it did. I don’t even feel like I can blame it on my loss of brainpower. Although I REALLY want to… instead I think I’ll do what scores of other people do.

I’ll blame it on something that happened in my childhood.

Four score and some 37 years ago, I was a kindergartner. This was back in the 70s when you walked with the neighborhood kids, not your mom. My buds were Joey and Walter. Oh, we were a cocky group of kindergarteners. Every day we passed by this little girl not yet old enough for school. So one day we pointed it out. “Na na na na na, we go to school and you don’t!”

I really didn’t mean it that way. I liked her and wanted her to be able to come to school, too. But it came out so mean, and Joey thought it was sooo funny—and the laughter ended up being so contagious. Until she started crying and her delinquent cousin came out, created a huddle, then knocked our heads together (true story). Then it felt like a disease. I’ll never forget that kid’s scrunched up face when he came toward us. “That’ll teach you.” No remorse.

We were late to school that day. There was a big hullabaloo and the office called my mother to ask if she sent me to school with a big bump on my head. She came down and asked me if I wanted to go home. But everyone was being so nice and, in housekeeping, they appointed ME the mother, not the step-sister or the family pigeon. I was a rock star with a swollen head. I was getting ready to ride the highway. So I stayed. I could have had a concussion, and I wouldn’t have cared. Later that year I did get mono and was forced to leave for weeks only to come back and have to climb the social ladder all over again. Yes, it's true. Everything you need to know, you learn in kindergarten.

Here’s the question I struggle with: Is it possible I had some sort of PTSD post traumatic stress disorder/head trauma all these years that has caused me to act this way? I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. But in the years that followed, I can only tell you there are many more stories like the karaoke one. Sometimes I think I have serious problems and need an MRI. What if I have a brain tumor? The very sad thing is that we have had brain tumors in my family. It affected us deeply. And, I have kids. And I’m petrified of death because of them. I don’t want to know if I am dying. So, for now maybe I will blame it on age. Although age does lead to death… But at least that’s the natural way and that’s something I can live with. And, if I can turn all this around by walking, like the article stated, I’ll do it. But not before I get a pedicure.