Dwindle

Never having been pretty, I am not finding my recession into the invisibility of middle age to be particularly troubling.  I have wrinkles- so what?  I've had other imperfections longer.  People look past me- so what?  They always did.

But my mind is also dimming, and I am struggling with this decline even more than I imagined I might.  Smarts have been the bedrock of who I am.  And I hadn't even realized the extent to which my intelligence gifted me with competence and confidence.  For years, I have believed that I could do almost anything I put my mind to- from working as a feature writer on zero experience, to penning a romance novel, to leading workshops.  I have believed I could do anything because, in large part, I could.

I have read that the brain changes of Alzheimer's begin in one's thirties.  I feel them.

When I was running meetings at the coop in my twenties, calling on individuals in the order in which they had raised their hands, I used to be able to track a mental roll of twenty or more names.  Now I'm lucky if I can remember three digits in a row.  I can't recall the name of that eighth reindeer (Google reveals that it's Comet), or whether or not my good friend discovered the sex of her baby in advance the first time around, or the name of the acquaintance who recently committed suicide.  I fish for words when I write, and when I go back to edit, I discover humiliation: missing articles, bungled verbs, iffy comparisons.

This Christmas, I mailed my in-laws' presents to myself.

In short, I can no longer be relied upon.  And I have always, always been able to rely on myself.

I accept this because I must, because there is no other option than acceptance.

But it is painful.  Who am I without my intelligence?  No one I particularly care for.  I suppose the challenge will lie in coming to do so.