The issues of a sieve

Really, I had the post of all posts planned for you to write. I was sure you wanted to read this, it would make your life more fun and that's why I had to type like crazy. But it was the weekend, one of my dearest friends was getting married and in the meantime, I stepped onto a boat. Read here by the way why you want that too. And it was gone, as in: an echoing, empty skull and I couldn't dig up the brilliant idea anymore or bring it back to the active part. It's official; I am a sieve.
But still, it's strange because when I'm sitting at the table with a girlfriend and a bottle of white wine reminiscing about the past, I can recall the most trivial (and silly) details. Like how she left that beach party with green helium balloons half an hour earlier, for example, because she had to get up early the next day to brunch with her mom at that one little place. And I'm talking about eight, ten, or fifteen years ago. I actually want to have a good conversation with my memory, because why do you store that peripheral info but not my appointment with the dentist?
I might have an explanation. As you get older, your memory shifts into a lower gear. This is the fancy term for the scientific fact that your brain volume shrinks by twenty percent. Mamma mia. In life, you rely on short-term memory and, yes, eureka, long-term memory. The fact that you know those two are connected comes from repetition. When you fall into repetition, the long-term door opens and it gets carefully stored. Neurons make a connection to transfer info and the more often you make the connection, the stronger that connection becomes. Just like you give an emotional charge to a moment. I think my friend's half-hour early departure from a grandiose beach party with green balloons was secretly more emotional for me than I dared to admit. In short, you remember something for a nanosecond, a minute, or at most an hour. And then: poof, it’s gone.
Returning packages before the expiration date and not making my friend grumpy by asking him about it in a hyperventilating state an hour before the deadline. Messaging my distant cousin for coffee, because we've been living in the same little village for five weeks. Double dating and not the version of four people, but my own with two appointments at the same time. Forgetting to take the shopping list to the supermarket and then almost doing everything from memory, but still leaving the shelled pistachios for the couscous on the shelf. Someone to pay back (yes, I am such a brat and I don't even do it on purpose). It's persistent. The online self-test does say that I have an excellent memory and many people ‘would be jealous of me’. Her words, huh, I doubt it.

Yet there is hope. It's a solid plan to do just one thing at a time. If you move more, it has a beneficial effect on memory. You can keep your neurons in optimal condition by getting enough sleep and feeding yourself healthily. And using that bite, that's the best medicine against all those forgetful moments. Unfortunately, I still don't know what thought I wanted to share with you, but I'm going to sleep on it for a night.