Forgetfulness!

I log off from my work network and shut down my laptop. It’s late on a Friday afternoon and it’s been a busy week. I have one last item on my to-do list before I call it a day: write my mother.

I grab a piece of stationary and start the note. It will be a quick one. I’ll ask her how she’s doing and if she’s staying warm as the temperatures dip into the teens. I’ll give her an update on my kids; what we’re up to the next couple of weeks; when we next plan to visit her; and I’ll tell her that I love her. I could just as easily call or text her, but I like that the note will surprise her in the middle of the week and let her know that we’re thinking of her. 

Here’s my problem, though:

When I go to address the envelope, I write out my mother’s name and reflexively start to write the address of my youth, the house at the top of a long country road where I grew up and spent the first quarter of my life. I stop and rip up the envelope in frustration.  

My mother hasn’t lived in the house for years. After my father died, she moved to a small apartment closer to town and I still have to look up the apartment address each time I need it. I try to write my mother each week. Like clockwork, I have to look up the address each and every week. You would think I would know the address by hear, but no such luck. I think I know it, but I’ll transpose a number or second guess myself.

Of course, I laugh at the absurdity of the situation. I can tell you my home address and phone number from when I was a kid. I can even give you the landline phone number that my wife and I shared for the first 25 years of our marriage. If I think real hard, I can give you the apartment address we shared after we were first married. My mother’s address, though? The place where she lives today. Forget it. Forget about trying to perform the mental gymnastics to recall my own damn cellphone number.

Is this old age, amnesia, forgetfulness, or simple insanity? Let’s hope none of the above, but I’m not ruling out anything. Lol.