346 Days Until the Big Five-O

I am so embarrassed! Even though only one person may be reading this, I hope some day 2 or 3 people may actually come upon it, and think of it as the lost archives of some strange, yet fascinating civilization.

I confused the names of my second and fifth grade teachers. Originally I had Mrs. McCracken described as my Second Grade Teacher, but that was the name of my Fifth Grade Teacher. I think Kornacker was the Second Grade Teacher. Could my memory finally be failing me. I have so much in common with my 90 year old mother. We are unable to remember the names of the people we meet 10 minutes after we meet them. Yet, we had excellent recall for anything that occurred in the distant past, until now. These days we both seem to be struggling to remember the names of the tenants that lived in our building 40 years ago, the stores along Devon Avenue, the names of the children of the once large family which has dwindled to my mother and a couple of cousins. This is not good.

Also, I fell into an old bad habit this past week. I did something I have managed to avoid doing for a very long time. I totally offended someone I barely knew. I did this by saying something completely inappropriate. Even my writing is beginning to show signs of deterioration: Totally, Completely, Like Wow Man, I think I do need to go read that Stink and Write Book.

Why did I do it? I don't know but it has me so upset I can barely write. I did it on FaceBook. I poked my beautifully fixed nose where it did not belong and thought it was okay to say outrageously presumptive things to a someone I met briefly in a bar last week. I would like to explain myself (the dead dad, the mid-life crisis, the stress of raising children and taking care of retarded cousins and an elderly mother), but the truth is there is no Excuse. I apologized. My stomach hurts when I think about it, and maybe I really am back at DeWitt Clinton Grammar school where beginning in 6th Grade my Big Mouth became what I was known for.


I am not sure I am ready to write about Fifth Grade. It was the real turning point in my life. I went from a smart shy skinny 9 year old to a fat failing 10 year old in what seemed like a blink of the eye. Perhaps life was a roller coaster way before that but my ability to interpret the crazy house I was growing up in had not yet developed. Our age determines how we interpret our lives and how that interpretation is manifested in behaviors that we cannot understand. It is a complicated turn of events in our brain. This is WHY hindsight is 20/20. The older we get, the more layers we are able to lift and look under to see the real sleeping monsters beneath the covers.