Curse of living in the town I grew up in. Someone recognized me over the weekend (I’m a recluse mostly so this was unusual) saying “We went to school together!” and I’m like “Oh yeahhhhh” but literally I was thinking college? that community school class I took? grad school? um I really didn’t recognize her at all. It was someone I was only vaguely acquainted with in HS, How does anyone remember me - it’s crazy.
Not so much of specific incidents (as far as I know, of course) but names–names of people, songs, movies, celebrities, …words. I have the person/movie/product/word meaning clear in my head. But the label for it, the name, just flees.
I tend to attribute this to a past brain injury, with a little post-menopause thrown in, but it can definitely be worrisome, even though I handle complex ideas and processes just fine.
It’s really tough when you and your family members look alike and your looks haven’t changed much pretty much your whole life. Folks come up to me and say, oh, tell your folks I said “HI!” or tell your brother/sister. It can be very tough for us to figure out who they are (they ASSUME we know them, since they know us). Folks from my HS (750+ kids were in my graduating class) recognize me from all those decades ago, even though I often have no idea who they are since they don’t look anything like how they looked back then.
I have a very tough time remembering people that were not important in my life and people my folks casually knew.
I forgot to buy avocados at the grocery store today. D asked for them, and I wrote it on my list. Still, I forgot. I do this with some item or other every week.
When H remembers going to places that I don’t remember, I always say, “You must’ve been with your OTHER wife.”
Just this morning, my co-worker came into work and I totally could not remember her name for several minutes. It really rattled me to be so blank.
I have friends on Facebook that I have no clue who they are. They are also friends with everybody else I know and they obviously remember me from high school, but I don’t remember them even a little bit.
My work computer died a couple of weeks ago and I started to realize how much I rely on the search function to pull up information of past projects. Also, I was looking over some differential equations examples and don’t even remember the basics. I earned a math minor but never used it after college.
I remember way more about S1’s firsts (Robert Cray, first steps 5/5/95) than D’s (Tom Knight?, some time beginning of March?), and I barely remember raising S2. Selective amnesia kicked in hard by that point.
We do have tickets to EJ for his farewell tour when he hits Tacoma, no kids.
@garland Yours sounds a bit like mine. My brain is even “talented” enough to throw other words in when it can’t remember the correct word. This wouldn’t be so bad if they were synonyms or descriptive or something, but it just chooses words that are “close enough” like perhaps “fridge” when I wanted to say “stove.” It tends to happen daily - sometimes multiple times per day and has me concerned enough that I keep seriously contemplating retiring from school. For now I just warn my classes to either “fix it” if what I say is obviously wrong, or ask questions if something seems odd, but they can’t figure it out. My worry is if I say something that is obviously wrong to me, but with their just learning, it seems perfectly ok to them. (sigh) My family has learned to live with it. Of course, it’s not like they have another option. I guess they could get miffed making my life stressful, but they roll with it.
I’ve pretty much forgotten how to play the piano and read music. I took piano lessons from age 5 to 15 and really hated it for most of those years but my mother wouldn’t allow me to quit. Once I finally did, I guess I just wiped my memory clean in relief. I guess it wouldn’t take me very long to relearn it but I still don’t have any desire to. >:P
Fairly often, someone will come up to me at church and say, “I saw your post on Facebook!” and I will have no idea who she is. Ack.
I saw Elton John in concert about 6-7 years ago. He was phoning it in. I think we left early.
As for forgetting things, I’m glad I’m not the only one. I can’t remember names to save my life.