Just think of it–when a person reaches my age, what a large amount of experiences and wisdom she has gained! Each marvelous bit finds a little nook or cranny in the brain and lodges there. Imagine this: a bookshelf over-flowing with knowledge, wisdom, trivia, know-how. Fairly boggles the mind, doesn’t it?
I’d like to share this plethora of useful things with the younger generation or perhaps there are those of my generation who would benefit. And, believe me, I try. An astounding thing is that no one seems overly impressed or excited or grateful for my generosity. In fact, although I know it’s hard to believe, I’m beginning to suspect that sometimes they don’t hear a word.
Instead of grateful responses like, Amazing! I didn’t know that, Who knew? Thank you so much. That will give me a life purpose, Oh, my goodness, Granny, how’d you get to be so smart? These are some of the responses with which my generosity is met: I know. You’ve told me before. Haven’t you heard? That hypothesis was disproved long ago. Or, worse yet, my pronouncements are met with blank looks and silence or a yawn.
It is hard to believe such ingratitude! But, since I can’t share a whole lot of this information or lessons learned or varied and sundry experiences, my brain is faced with the problem of overcrowding. The only answer is to discard some of it to make room for more. Now, when someone mentions something I should remember, I’ll say, Huh!I didn’t know that. Are you sure? Or I’ll give them this blank stare. Sort of puts them off balance.
Lest I get a reputation for being forgetful, let me say I haven’t forgotten a thing. I’ve just deleted some of the older stuff to make room for more. Probably, that’s how the false label of being forgetful got stuck onto people past the age of fifty. I have to be discriminating in what I choose to retain in my memory vault. There’s simply not room for it all, due to overcrowding.
My grandkids say, “Here we go again.”
I will have to use the overcrowding idea.
That sounds like my grandkids!