Maternal Mayhem

Losing The Plot

Well, i may not be missing anything but my mother seems to be missing the part of her mind that can recall anything from over five minutes ago. Am i being melodramatic? Yes, maybe a little bit. But only a little bit! It is rapidy becoming clearer and clearer that my mother's memory is not what it used to be. At 45, that isn't the best thing to be noticing!

The other day, mum asked me 5 successive times in the course of 15 minutes the exact same question, each time recieving the exact same answer. This did, at the time, provide some amusement as i proceded to count the number of times that our little exchange could be repeated. On the flip side, the constant repetition of similar incidents becomes somewhat tiring.

Why has this suddenly become something worthy of the hovel? Well, it all stems from the presence of our delightful silver auto-door which keeps the riff-raff out of the garage. And the fact that it doesn't automatically close itself after the car has made it inside. Recently, i've come home numerous times to find the door wide open. Uhoh. Until last night i noticed and closed the door before anything went too wrong. Last night the lucky streak we apparently were on ended.

I get home last night, the door is open again, i tell mum but then i get distracted as i attempy to wrestle a guitar, a keyboard, a huge backpack and three eskies out of my car. Unfortunately, my mother also forgets, as is apparently the norm. Come morning, bye-bye annie's bike and all of dad's tools. Oops.

Now mum's freaking out. Apparently it's 'nobody's fault' but mum still feels the need to justify herself around the clock. Not only is she freaking out about telling dad when he gets home from KI but she claims she forgot because she was 'busy', not because she has developed some strange kind of amnesia.

So, what do you do when one of your parents is unable to remember conversations? To lock away items of expense? To remember where her teenage daughter is and avoid an entire night of stress? And, through it all, retains that there is no big problem.

I'm being driven slowly insane. S-l-o-o-o-o-w-l-y. Bleaugh. But i'm sure i'll manage. If anyone has any ideas on how to deal with a mother with an apparent case of very early-onset amnesia, feel free to share!!!

Annie