"Getting rid of everything that doesn’t matter allows you to remember who you are. Simplicity doesn’t change who you are, it brings you back to who you are."

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Pause For The Cause

So I'm at work on Friday trying to enter my hours for the week in on our company's online payroll system. 

To do this I have to enter our company code, an Employee ID # and finally my own personal password. 

I do all of this and it spits back at me..."Invalid.  Try Again."

Crap.

So I do it again and get the same response.  I'm looking at my ID # and I know it's wrong but for the life of me I can't remember what the correct digits are. 












I pause, staring out my office window. 

I look down at the screen again.

Nothing. 

I'm blank.

Insert the sound of crickets chirping here.







These moments of "Duh" are happening more and more.  I realize that this is just one more side effect of declining hormones and the simple fact that my grey matter just doesn't fire on all cylinders anymore but really...

There just aren't enough sticky notes in my life to remind me of all the freakin passwords, codes, numerical ID's  that I need day in and day out to function in this modern world. And most of them are important enough that I can't put it on paper so I've got to remember them. 

Don't they know I'm over 50?










How I long for the caveman days of yesteryear.

Ugg.  Hungry.  Eat.  Scratch buttock.  Pick nose.  Sleep.

How much easier life was then.

So today I was browsing the Internet cause it's cold and rainy out and I have no motivation to do squat and I come across this article on The Huffington Post called  The Skinny On Remembering

Here's a snippet that had me laughing.

I now have frequent moments throughout the day where an uncomfortable pause falls upon whatever conversation I am having. It is a noisy quiet, sometimes initiated by me, sometimes by my middle-aged girlfriend, but it's an unmistakable moment of quiet that concerns me because it never happened to me until I got old. Thinking about these spaces of quiet in my day reminds me of what Deborah Underwood has described as many kinds of quiet: Top of the roller coaster quiet, first look at my new bad haircut quiet, first one awake quiet, jelly side down quiet, don't scare the robins quiet, car ride at night quiet. 
Along that same line of thinking, I have, as a middle-aged woman, discovered a new subcategory of quiet. There is the I forgot my password quiet, I'm not sure where I parked my car quiet, I can't remember what I came in this room to get quiet and the I can't find my reading glasses and the waitress is waiting quiet. Then there is the dreaded I cannot remember my boss's wife's name to introduce her quiet.


Been there done that. 

Glad to know I'm not alone.

Now who am I talking to again?

Hello?


9 comments:

  1. I taken to using a small - really small - hardcover book in which I write all my passwords. And I carry it with me ALL the time. Maybe that is a solution...?

    Now - where did I put that little book...

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  2. LOL I suffer those quiet periods too.

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  3. Oh my gosh...This reminds me of yesterday when I was leaving the library and a woman standing next to her car in the parking lot was just standing there with this puzzled look on her face. I asked her if she was okay and she told me she couldn't remember how to get to the grocery store from where she was. As soon as I started giving her directions, she brightened right up and remembered where it was. I told her it happens to me all the time...LOL

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  4. Tami,

    It happens to me all the time too! We have to change our passwords at work waaay too often & it can't even begin to mimic the last one. I use 5 different words & add #s to the end of them & rotate them. I keep a postit on by desk with the 1st letter of each word (K, Q, B, D, R) & note the #s by each one so I can keep track, crossing off as I use them.

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  5. My husband was waiting in the car in the parking lot. I was standing at the curb with my cart full of groceries, frantically searching for our auto (are all cars now silver in color?). After he finally got my attention (honk-honk-honk), and I was safely back in my vehicle, he told me I had the most pitiful, lost expression on my face as I stood there. He actually felt sorry for me. That's why I ALWAYS park in the same row when I go to the store. It really throws me for a curve when he's driving and parks anywhere else.

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  6. It gets a bit scary for me when I have these moments. My mother has senior dementia issues so I get "oh no, I'm turning into my mother!" moments. She's going to be 87 this year so it's not so bad for her but I still have to work and stuff. I think of these moments of quiet as filled with radio static - my brain just isn't tuning in the right station. I think I need a new battery...

    BTW: Here's a hint for some passwords: think of a favorite phase or line from a song, then use the first letter of each word.

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  7. As long as I don't actually have to think about a password - you know, just type it by rote - I am fine. Otherwise, I am lost. I have the same stupid set up at work. I think they are using it to weed out the seniors.....that's my conspiracy take on it anyway. :)

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  8. Otherwise known as a brain fart!

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  9. I think we all at some time have these moments. It is a lot to keep up with so many passwords and accounts. Life is a blur!

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