R: the 3Rs

 R: Recognize, Recall, Repeat

Memo To: Whom it may concern

From: H..? (I know it begins with an H)

RE: The three Rs

Date: April 21, 2022

I’m sure that you are all aware of the 3Rs. In school, growing up, it was “reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmatic”. Being that it will be Earth Day tomorrow we also have “reduce, reuse, recycle”. You can check out this Wikipedia article if you want more 3R references: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3R

It has come to my attention that I suffer from a relatively unlisted 3R which is due to what scientists, doctors, and my wife call, “the aging factor”. In this case, we get introduced to the 3Rs of, “recognize, remember, repeat.

There are many symptoms of these 3Rs.

Example #1: You go into a room in your house because you want to get something. When you get there, you recognize the room you are in, however, you cannot remember why you went into this room, therefore you must step out of the room to where you started from and repeat the entire process of walking into the room, in the hopes that you will recall what it was you went into the room for. btw, This rarely works. 

Example #2: You meet a person on the street that you know or you see an actor/actress from a movie or TV show that you recognize but you can’t quite remember their name (other than maybe, you know it begins with a certain letter of the alphabet), so you repeat in your mind every person you have ever interacted with or every movie/TV show you have ever watched, hoping that the name will mysteriously pop up in your head. Sometimes this works at the appropriate time, though most of the time the memory either comes back two days later in the middle of some other conversation or when you do recall the name, it does not start with the letter you thought it did. One trick I use which sometimes is effective is saying the alphabet inside my head with the hopes that the name I’m looking for will pop up when I hit the letter of that person’s name.

Example #3: You are looking for something that you know you just had in your hand. You recognize the object in your mind and remember that you just had it, so again you must repeat, and retrace your steps through every inch of where you have been in the last 24 hours trying to find said item. Sometimes the object in question is never found, like that Covid mask, or the holiday list of cookies I’ve baked over the last 8 years that I know I wrote down.

#Example #4: You plan on doing something, so you write it down or put it in your calendar. Hopefully, you recognize as the clock strikes the appointed hour that there is something you are supposed to do or be at, though in many cases that recognition comes after the event has started or has finished. Here’s where the fun begins. You remember that you wrote it down somewhere, for it has all the information needed to attend the event, but not where you put said remembrance. So again, you must repeat your actions from the time you wrote down the event and become a detective to figure out either what the event was that you forgot or where you put your reminder. 

The sad thing about the aging 3Rs is that the frequency of each of these examples increases as years go on. The other sad thing is that, unlike puberty, there is no set age range for the onset of these symptoms. And once they start to appear, they never go away; there’s no cure. 

So this memo to you is to help you recognize what is going on with me when you see me staring at you with a blank expression on my face or you see me wandering around as if I have no purpose in mind. You need to remember that this is all part of my succumbing to the aging 3Rs. Don’t make me repeat myself.