CROW’S FEET WRITING PROMPT #24 AGING SURPRISES

What Was I Just Doing?

The biggest surprise about aging: Distracti…

Detail of one of eight postcards I illustrated about the lives of residents of the mythical land of Climacterica. © Chris Raymond

About 10 years ago, I designed a set of souvenir postcards from the mythical country of Climacterica, as a gentle insider joke about life during “the change” for its female citizens. (For the men reading this, I’m talking about menopause).

Each postcard used a dictionary entry as a springboard for an illustration: e.g., Turmoil, Forty Winks, Absent-Minded, Stiff, Distract.

Driven to distraction

Even in my mid-50s, I was prone to distraction, getting up to get something, and being waylaid by a random thought. I attributed it to the stress of a job with a micromanager and hormonal storms.

Now in my 60s, it’s A.) not a joke, and B.) way worse.

In fact, since I retired late last year, the distraction frenzy has become almost unbearable. I find myself having lots of ideas for projects to tackle, phone calls to make, To Do’s to get done, yet with “all the time in the world,” I seem to actually get very little completed.

On a positive note, I’ve become stellar at starting things.

Then I think about some other task, get up to do that, get distracted by yet another task or note that I just have to jot down (which I forget by the time I get to my notebook), and before you know it, it’s time to make dinner.

My apartment reflects my daily whirl-a-gig, with fabric, needles, and thread piled up next to my armchair, my drafting table overrun with paper ephemera for collages; and Medicare, Medigap, Part D, and Social Security paperwork scattered in piles on the coffee table. This is so not me. At least, it wasn’t me until six months ago.

I had to call two insurance companies this month, worried that my drug plan and supplement were going to lapse. One customer service rep laughed with me (I hope!) as I praised my past self for having set up auto-pay, even if I’d forgotten that I did. Yes, I’ve now made a note of this, in two different places.

When I do manage to write something down, I forget where. Was it in a Google doc? In my bullet journal? In Trello?

I’m surprised, and honestly puzzled at how distractible I’ve become.

Is it “just” aging? Is it due to multiple nights of a meager five hours of sleep? Is it a side effect of spending too much time on Twitter and Instagram, causing my mind to become incapable of holding a thought for more than 30 seconds? Is it post-retirement rebellion against work deadlines?

I now avoid any novel whose review describes it as “intricately plotted.” Shifting back and forth in time? No way. It’s hard enough focusing on a linear plot from one night to the next, let alone one involving time travel and a dozen characters.

Steel trap to sieve

I used to have a mind like a steel trap: I could recall entire interviews when I was a medical reporter. Now I have to write myself notes about where things are in my apartment. And then find the notes.

Lest anyone reading this think I have incipient Alzheimer’s: I’m on a 54-day Wordle streak. My longest was 71 days. I can explain HTML and CSS to anyone who cares to ask (admittedly, a very small audience). What I can’t seem to do anymore is complete one thing at a time, without detours.

A related story:

[embed]Two Weeks In What it’s like being retired so farmedium.com

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