Article: I wrote "Where Did I...

I wrote "Where Did I Leave My Glasses?" because I constantly found myself saying, "Where did I leave my glasses?". And "I can't remember why I came into the kitchen". And "What's his name? It's on the tip of my tongue". It was happening to my friends, too, and we all kept making unfunny jokes about it, such as "This must be Alzheimers." Ho ho.

When I got anxious enough, I took myself to a psycho-neurologist, and was tested, and told that, from middle age on, this kind of memory loss is perfectly normal. In fact, it is so common—so universal—that the exact phrase "It's on the tip of my tongue" is a cliche in more than forty languages.

Well, then, curiousity whetted, I began interviewing memory specialists, and learning a great deal else I hadn't known before. Such as why people's names are typically the first thing to go. And the differences between male memory and female memory. And the upside of memory loss (yes, Virginia, there is an upside—a crucial one). And how we can tell when it isn't normal. And why our memories deceive us. And memory in relation to exercise, and to diet, and why we remember emotional pain better than physical pain, and why we may be biologically wired to forget, and what the future holds for the enhancement of our memories (you can't imagine)...

And then I put it all together and wrote the book that hopefully will inform, entertain and reassure readers who may not know, just as I did not know, that our kind of memory loss is normal. Normal—lovable word!

Copyright © 2008 by Martha Weinman Lear