Okay, don’t get too excited. By the time you’re reading this, it’s Past Me doing the typing, but in regards to the other posts I’m Future Me until the timeline catches back up.
I was scrolling back through the most recent batch of posts and actually enjoying what I had written, which was a new feeling for me. Maybe that should be my return post. Some sort of treatise on what an amazingly not horrible writer I am. With my memory issues, it’s like I’m reading someone else’s writing. That would be a good theme for the post! Then I got down to “Astro’s Back… Tell a Friend” and read:
“I’ve scrolled back through some of my old posts and it’s like I’m reading someone else’s writing. And while this author sometimes just won’t get to the fucking POINT, I still like the things he has to say and he still makes me laugh. Or smile. Or tear up.”
Well, fuck.
So here I am again and as usual, outside forces have pushed me to start writing again. Some would say it’s because I found a way to stop the Basement Organization Project currently in progress. To those people I would say “I wasn’t expecting you to be home from work so early, Honey.” And yes, she does know me that way, but there’s been one of those great national tragedies that makes me want to start writing. Today is Friday, November 8, 2024. I know something awful happened a few days ago, but my mind is still protecting me from remembering. I’m sure I’ll figure out what it was sometime in January.
My last small return was working around the theme of my impending Early Onset Alzheimer’s diagnosis. At some point between then and now I got the results: I have none of the genetic markers associated with Early Onset Familial Alzheimer’s Disease. Cue mixture of peppy dance music and the sad trombone noise.
Yes, I’m happy that the docs have looked at my genes and think I’m clear. It’s not a complete free pass, since I could still develop dementia later in life. But I shouldn’t have anything to worry about for the next twenty or thirty years. So that part I’m happy about, sure. There’s also a couple of “buts” that would make Sir Mixalot lose his frickin’ mind.
But 1: In the face of Impending Doom, I had been kind of writing off the future. Like, why should I care about what’s happening in thirty years, twenty years, ten years from now? I’ll be dead or some mindless automaton in a home by that point. Now I have to consider the future. Like, for real. Plan things out. Pay attention to retirement funds. Find things to do in my spare time. Fuck. I mean yeah, it’s great, but it’s also a lot of work.
But 2: THEN WHY IS MY MEMORY STILL SO FUCKED UP? Seriously. And if you say anything resembling “that’s what happens when you get older” I’m gonna punch you in whatever kind of crotch you have. I don’t remember (ha) reading the description I came up with for how my brain operates nowadays. It’s like my brain is a flat piece of plywood and my hands are spread out underneath it with my arms extended fully. All of my thoughts are marbles on that plywood. And I’m running full tilt. Down a flight of stairs. Screaming.
I can come up with twenty or thirty different possible reasons for this, from nutrition to exercise to My Time in Chemo to all of the sleep I lost when I owned the gym to all the sleep I’ve lost for no discernible reason to my ADHD to my depression to oh god is that twenty or thirty yet I hate this game.
So here I am again on my own, going down the only road I’ve ever known. Holy shit, I should write a song.