SHORT TERM MEMORY LOSS

SHORT TERM MEMORY

 

Those of you who have following me for a while, know that my short term memory, well sucks.

 

People and experts wrote that it would return if I did exercises.

Well, it hasn’t returned.

So I went to a store and said, I want my short term memory back.

 

 

They asked me if I had a receipt. I said “no”.

And they told me I was shit out of luck.

 

 

 

 

Fortunately for them, I can’t remember what store it was, or I’d go back and sue.

 

 

That's all Folks

 

HAVE A HAPPY HOLIDAY

 

 

 

AND THANKS FOR READIN

LOW EXPECTATIONS MEAN EVERYONE ENDS UP HAPPY Why oh why can't I learn?

I remember the first time I heard about low/no expectations. It was years back from a middle school girl relating her older brother's advice.
Needless to say I was appalled.  No expectations? How can you expect to get anywhere or be anything with no expectations?

Her response was real simple. You never get disappointed.

I hadn't given it too much thought about maybe ten years ago when the topic of expectations came up. It was interesting. If you have expectations and they aren't met, you get disappointed and may even resent the person who disappointed you. The consensus was for no expectations.

I'm sorry, but I couldn't go there. I was able to settle on what we ultimately called reasonable expectations.

Of course reasonable is subjective and not exactly a true measure. It at least gives a guideline to work with.

Why am I now thinking about this? Well, I think about expectations a lot. Being brought up as a child whose family had unrealistically high expectations, I was doomed to feeling like a failure, regardless of how well I might have done. I also put those high expectations on everyone else. And so, guess what? I was frequently disappointed and couldn't understand other people.

I also remember attending a district wide workshop for school psychologists. There was a questionnaire we had to fill out. One of the questions was "how do you think you are doing at your job?"  Of course I thought I was doing a very good job. I had feedback from supervisors and administrators so I'm not just blowing smoke. When the papers were passed around, I saw that someone else had written "adequate".  It blew me away.  How could a person feel alright just being adequate?

Looking back on all the years that I struggled to be "better than" I can laugh at myself. I'm not saying that doing your best is a bad thing. Only when you become so invested in it that you're never happy.

WHICH BRINGS ME BACK TO WHY I'M WRITING

If you've been following my blog, you know that I had cataract surgery. The second eye was done a bit over a week ago.

Here is where my expectations have gotten me.

I know a lot of women who have had this surgery, even without the laser part. I kept wondering why so many older women weren't wearing glasses. Except occasionally for reading.  I started doing a poll and found out the answer was linked to cataracts. I already had them and was told they were getting "ripe".

I got so excited. I'd been wearing glasses with progressive lenses for 20 something years. It's not that I don't like glasses. I actually do. It's that I'm one of those people who are easily annoyed by things like clothing labels, bras, panty hose and the place behind your ears where the glasses sit.

I have a small head. (Thick skull?) and finding glasses to fit was never easy. And so I figured I'd be home free.

I saw my ophthalmologist and they were ripe for the picking. We went over the possibilities. I could have regular surgery, (no extra money)  but it's not as precise or something like that. I could have the laser, but it couldn't do what I wanted. Of course not. I wanted to not need reading glasses because I do so much close up work. Also, shopping it's a pain to have to take out glasses to read the price.

Because I have dry eyes, the type of lens that would have fixed it all was out of the question.

He said he would try to tweak it so I lost a little of my distance (which I didn't think I cared about) to give me a bit more for close up.

Somewhere in there I heard, I probably wouldn't need reading glasses. Which brings me to my point. My expectations were not realistic if I really listened to what the doctor had said.

Although my eyes won't settle for another three weeks, this is probably where they are.

I NEED READING GLASSES, SORT OF MOSTLY?

Sometimes I can read at the computer without anything. The #'s he told me to try were 2.5 and 2.75. So I bought two inexpensive pair. Not quite right. No good for computer. Okay for reading?

I went to the dollar store and got three different magnifying numbers. Some are the same and they suck. Others were okay. The problem is I have to remember to take them on and off. I put them on and look around and get nauseous.

I won't go on because this was supposed to just be an example.

EXPECTATIONS CAN BREAK YOUR HEART

I have finally come to the understanding that me and so many people I know, have unrealistic expectations. And each time one doesn't get met, another little bit of a heart breaks.

You think you husband/boyfriend/girlfriend will remember your birthday and buy you a special gift. They don't. You take it personally.


HYPOTHESIS
Human beings are self-centered. Therefore, we believe that what is important to us will also be important to everyone else. Well, at least those people who know us. So, we expect them to be able to read our minds and meet those expectations.

REALITY CHECK
What's important to me, may not be important to you. And, I have no right to believe that it should be. Just because I believe something does not make it so.
Also, if you do not know. People cannot read minds.

CONCLUSION
If you have an expectation from someone else, you better let them know. Communicating your desires and wants is the only possible way you might get them. Usually, even that doesn't work. At least you know that you will not be getting roses on Valentine's Day.  Assuming you were listening and didn't decide that the other person would do it anyway.

What we do comes under the heading of crazy. You know, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

I have to learn to lower my overall expectations. It's jus the way it is. And that includes the ones I have for myself. I need to give me a break too.

So, stop expecting so much.  When something nice happens, you'll be surprised and in the end, so much happier. 

BEST DATE EVER no number necessary because this was one of a kind

  The funny thing is that this was a set up by my ex-friend Dot.  Quite a number of years before our fallout. No person is just one dimensional.  There are the good parts and the bad. Sometimes we can see the imbalance and the good is heavier and accounts for more. And then the scales can change.
 If we can only see one or the other,  we may have a problem.  There is a psychological term for it. It's called splitting. It's as if you can't integrate the both parts into one person, so you see them either all good or all bad. Infatuation does this. When it wears off, you should have a balanced view. If you don't, you and/or your partner will have a rocky road. And not of the Baskin Robbins variety.


BACK TO THE STORY WHICH I DIDN'T ACTUALLY BEGIN YET.

 I think I was around 24. I was living in a studio apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn. I was working for a dress manufacturer. Dot had given my number to a guy named Fred who lived in my neighborhood.  He was some type of salesman so he traveled around the country frequently. That made getting together a challenge.




I had spoken to him on the phone once and we had a nice conversation but that was it. Okay. That's the way it goes. No big loss. It was nice of Dot to think of me.

This happened a long time back. Maybe a dozen or so years before we had our falling out. We had actually been close. And my mom was too.  Dot had worked with my mom for a year of so when she was out of high school. At 17 she made friends with my mom. Looking at it today, it may have been a sort of replacement of my sister. And Dot's mom was old and Dot being the youngest was saddled with her when her dad died. Families. Families. They make us and break us.


Dot was Italian and had a big family, although they were scattered here and there. Over the years we got to know most of them When there was room at the table, she would invite me and my mom for Christmas dinner and it was always a festive, happy, food and wine fueled occasion.

The year I'm remembering, obviously, we got the call. This is where my memory blurs, but I don't think it will really matter.

I picked up my mom and we drove to Bay Ridge. We were lucky and found a parking spot not too far away. We walked to the building and were greeted in the small apartment by Dot, her mom, a niece or nephew or two. I don't think she had been married and divorced with her baby yet, but if she were, it wouldn't make a difference in the tale.
 She was the baby of her family so her siblings kids were closer to her age than her sibs were to her. That's a reason I can't remember who was who.(at least not now. Then, I knew)  It was warm and crowded and I remember that nice feeling of family. We started drinking and nibbling the antipasto and chatting around.

Some time later, another person showed up. His was introduced as  Renaldo and he was Italian. Short, dark and handsome. And tres chic. I asked Dot what his story was and he was visiting the family bla bla bla. Okay. That's nice.

Renaldo and I  spent most of the evening drinking, eating and chatting. He had a wonderful accent and I was able to understand him, no problem. We got a long really well. Of course we did. He didn't live in America, so why wouldn't we?

It got late, so my mom and I left. I'm sure I would have liked to stay, but what was the point? When we did go out the door, Renaldo kissed my hand. I know. Totally cliché, but at 24, it was quite nice.(at 66 it'd still be nice, maybe. now I'm not so sure. humbug!) He had taken my number but what good would it do? Remember, we girls wanted relationships not one night stands. Or anything long distance.

Hell, back then if you met a person in Manhattan, and you lived in Brooklyn and he lived in Queens, you were considered GU..  Geographically Undesirable.  Ha on all you young people who think you invented initials.

After a few days, I got a call from Renaldo. I'm happy, but sad. We're talking and he suddenly starts to laugh. Big laughing. At what, I am clueless. Suddenly he blurts out, "it's me, Fred".  No accent. Shock. I'm trying to grasp what's going on. I actually had to ask because I was so flummoxed.


He told me that he and Dot decided that we should meet, but not on a blind date. Instead. since he was good with accents, he'd meet me under false pretenses and see if we clicked. It really was clever.

You may have put it together because if I didn't mention Fred before, it'd be like watching a mystery show and the perp is not someone they've shown or mentioned and you're like, "where the fuck did this come from?  How could they do that?"  I would be especially pissed because I want to figure it out.

Fred, was actually an Egyptian Jew, which may have been one of the reasons he was quite good with accents. I think he spoke three languages.
We dated for a while, but as for why we stopped seeing each other, I have no recollection. I probably wasn't ready for a relationship even though I thought I was.
I certainly wasn't ready for the good ones yet.

THEORY

Why is it bad to have expectations?  Because you create a mindset and set yourself up for disappointment.
Should you have expectations?  Yes, but keep them reasonable and realistic.
But never, ever give up. There's always hope.