Off-my-rocker tired

Back when I was off-my-rocker tired, when I was doing the swim mom thing with all those early mornings and seemingly inescapable late nights, I had an experience that shook me up a bit and gave me pause. B and I were running errands and made an "unscheduled" stop at Home Depot.

I followed B in to the store, unsure of our purpose there. I asked him what we needed there. He began talking in response. He seemed to go on and on about whatever it was. He ended with some kind of question in his voice, while looking at me expectantly as he waited for my response.

The scary part of it all was that I understood every single word he said--as he said each word--but, for the life of me, I could not string those words together in meaningful sentences. It was like he might have been reading a spelling word list off to me.  As one word was said, it would slip away into the air. I had no idea what he was talking about. I knew that if I asked him to repeat himself, I would still not be able to make sense of all those words, even on the second go-round.

I thought of my mother and how often she would look blankly back at me after I had said even simple and short sentences to her, even after several repeats. I thought, "This is how Mom must have felt a lot of the time!"  I'd never realized that our memory is working AS SOMEONE SPEAKS to allow us to string words together in understandable sentences and paragraphs.  In the early days of Mom's dementia, she could bluff her way out of all kinds of memory lapses by using her humor and quick thinking. Those bluffing skills eventually went away and the blank looks took their place.

As I tried to decided what I should do, my mind did work enough for me to assume the bottom line must be that B wanted to spend money on something that was not absolutely necessary but wanted my OK (as I do clutch the purse somewhat tightly at times--usually at the end of the month when other pressing expenses have already drawn down our account--AND since I would be right there seeing him purchase it!). Not wanting to admit to my being so totally out of it and not wanting him to know he'd expended his conversational efforts to no good end, I said to him with a smile on my face and using by best--no doubt inherited--bluffing skills, "Hey! Today is your lucky day! Whatever it is that you want to do, go do it!"