forget

i've been on a radical streak of losing things and forgetting things lately. i generally am the go-to 'find it' person, so this has me wondering if i've officially hit the wall or if someone slipped something into my drink. er, all my drinks, i guess.

for example, in the past month i've lost both my watch and my everyday earrings - both of which i've had for years. (nearly ten years for the watch!) i've forgotten my car keys, including my spares, in town at haley's. i've left my driver's license and check card at home - at least twice in the past month. i've left my atm card in a machine and driven off. (only to have it both stolen and abused. that'll teach me, eh?) and this weekend, i even left half of the clothes i'd set out to pack for haley's, at home. yes, i forgot my clothes.

but perhaps the icing on the cake was yesterday when mega and i parked on a dirt road in ormewood park and left the car to go for a run. the top was down, so i carefully put my purse, camera, and car keys in the trunk. i removed the door remote to get back into the trunk, attached it to the leash, and jogged off down the street. when we returned to the car, i was only half-surprised to see that i'd left the trunk wide open.

yes, with the keys in plain view. yes, with my purse in plain view.

only half-surprised because this new phase of my memory, or lack thereof, is starting to feel normal. it's a little adventure. everywhere i go, i can feel relatively certain i'll be missing something essential. and then i have to hope the trusty MacGyver gene shows up.

last night i asked haley what she thought it meant. i feel certain there's something either to blame or to learn from this absenteeism of my temporal lobe. she said, 'maybe it's mega? she is quite distracting...'

but i don't think she's to blame. or rather, even if she is, i still think i'm queued up for a lesson and bound to keep losing things until i take heed. so today it occurred to me that perhaps losing these things that i consider so essential is meant to prove just the opposite. in much the same way that i became less and less attached to my old job in the months preceding my lay-off, perhaps this is a demonstration that my attachment to the old is best set aside.

haley and i are regulars at a yogurt shop in the highlands. we actually have line items in our budgets for near daily trips to yoforia. mega loves the plain yogurt and i credit it with her healthy spaniel ears. every day that we're there we sit on the restaurant's little orange stools, on their sidewalk patio, and watch the cars and people stroll by.

yesterday when we left the shop and looked for a place to sit everything was taken. but across the street there were two empty gliders in front of a restaurant we've been wanting to try. so, for the first time ever, we crossed the street. as we ate our yogurt, we watched people and cars go by...down the same road we watch almost every day.

but it looked different. from across the street, the perspective was different. more colorful. busier. the building cast a shadow on our seat and the sun illuminated the glass-front shops across.

different is good. a new perspective is good.

i've been reading a book over the past couple of weeks about a new perspective. i've forced myself to read it slowly; only a chapter or so a day; because i want to incorporate the principles. haley and i are changing our blueprints, so to speak, in the area this book speaks to. and so, when we sat across from our usual perch, and enjoyed our simple indulgence, we committed to crossing the street in as many ways as possible. looking at things from a different viewpoint as oft as possible.

i believe that my recent losses and forgetting'isms are perhaps part of this exercise. i believe they are meant to be reminders that i'm on a mission to forget some misguided ideas and let go of some habits from the past. i do believe this.

and so as i forget, i'm reminded.

d: remember to forget.
b: i crossed the street.
g: my car was spared in this education.