My brain is like a sieve

It’s scary really… how I am hard pressed to remember certain events / things / people / details which used to be important or part and parcel of my life. Of course, for every little (or rather big) “thing” that I forget, there will be the corresponding event / thing / person / detail (you get the idea) that I would love to forget but insists on sticking in my memory.

An example of my fickle memory (and this relates to a certain individual)

• For the past two weeks, I clearly recall three instances whereby I’ve accidentally dialed a number subconsciously. I could be trying to call L and I end up dialing 979xxxxx.
• Was at Macs during lunch today, and I started remembering my only lemon tea, no chili sauce days. And then I tried to remember… does he eat beef? Some part of my brain said no (along with the “but then I’m really not sure”), and then, of course, if was followed by, “then what did I eat”?

If it was to be argued that I subconsciously dialed the wrong number as it used to be a habit… so too, should it apply to what I used to eat in Macs.

That anomaly aside, I realized that it’s often the embarrassing incidents or the errors that stick in my mind. I may not remember my first kiss (okay, I actually do, it was with ‘ST’), but I can remember the first time I got drunk and made a fool of myself (along with the 2nd, 3rd, and every subsequent time I disgraced myself at Zouk), the stupid things that I’ve said to upper management, interviewers, guys that I’ve liked, guys that I’ve disliked, people that I’ve hurt, etc, etc. It made me wonder whether it’s because I’m actually very mindful of what others think of me. Could that be the reason why the “negative” episodes stand out more than others???

Right… now my brain hurts. Not even sure where I’m going with this, just that I feel that I’ve been extremely forgetful of late, and I can’t seem to differentiate between incidents that have happened, versus incidents that happened in my dreams. There seems to be a lot of “déjà vu” around, followed by periods of sheer memory loss.

Typical daily incidents that I cannot remember

• I think I’ve written down a piece of information / changed my flowchart / filed something away / gotten the printouts from the client, but I cannot find it in my documentation
• I vaguely remember asking my client a question, but I cannot for the life of me remember what he / she said
• Worse, I think I know what he / she said, but I don’t know if it was a figment of my imagination (i.e. in my dreams, or worse, in my day dreams)
• I can’t remember what are the things that I’ve blogged about vs. what are the things that I told myself that I will blog about (yes, now you know, if you are reading many posts that are related, or are exact replicas, this is the reason)

Can I actually be losing brain cells or memory cells at this age? Or is it just stress? (if yes, pray tell, why am I stressed?)

For now, I’ve decided to pen down all interviews with clients in my trusty notebook… and then ask my friends to forgive me if I keep forgetting things that I’ve said to them… and maybe I’ll start eating some ginko nuts or something (I heard they aid ze memory)

:)