Opus 2025-503: Dementia Club

I’m thinking that it might be time to start a new club.  We could make it a secret society with handshakes and subtle logos.  The main problem with the secret part is that this club is for people who are getting up to the age where dementia starts to sit in.  Yes I’m talking to me there.  Don’t look the other way.

Let’s face it.  We reach a certain point where we lose a lot of our edge.  All through life you have a hard time remembering names, getting the right word, forgetting to pick up eggs at the grocery store and so forth.  That’s a part of life, however, there comes a time in life when it seems to begin to multiply.  We can respond to this in different ways.

I’m suggesting that perhaps we start a secret club for people over 60.  We have a pledge to each other that we will constantly keep checking to see how far down the slide we’ve gone.  What brought this to mine was a recent conversation with a man who said, “I’m 84 years old and I think I’m still doing OK.  My mind seems alert.”  At that point, we both said together, “As far as you can tell.”  That’s a standard joke with us when we get to a certain age.  I will often say I think my mind is still working at least as far as I can tell.  I then often add I’ll be the last one to know when I lose it.

So this club will be there to help us find out when we’re losing it.  I think of the group of zoom guys I’m on with each week.  We are all at different levels of decay.  The guy who leads the group is starting to have more and more trouble with words and names.  Often I can come up with them.  That is to say I can come up with them for him, I’m not sure I can come up with them for myself.  So we correct each other, fill in the blanks, have a good laugh and head on down the slide.

The main problem with this secret club with its secret handshakes and such is that we may forget what the handshake is and we may even forget that we’re a member of the club.

It was a good idea while it lasted.  I wonder how many times I have already brought it up.

homo unius libri