I didn’t intend for this to happen but somewhere between the ages of 31 and 34, I started forgetting the names of people, (let me honest), the names of everyone I met.  Once the go-to person for anyone who wanted to know the given birth name of someone in a room, I was suddenly, grasping at thin air with names rambling through my mind when struck with the sudden knowledge that I didn’t know the person who was talking incessantly with me as if we were best friends.

Tiffany, Kelly, Mary, Sharon, Diane, Theresa, Hilary, Katie, Rita…. “uhhh, wow, I’m sorry, what was your name again?  ROBIN! Yes that’s it, sorry, it was on the tip of my tongue.”

Tip of my tongue? Yeah right, it wasn’t.  Three more times after running into Robin at the grocery store, Target and the library, I could no longer use that excuse and she was starting to approach me with a look on her face of “this is getting ridiculous if she can’t remember my name, AGAIN.”  Unfortunately, I never disappointed.

I don’t know what happened or how it came to be but what I do know is, it’s annoying, embarrassing and I haven’t yet found a way to fix it.  I’ve tried associating the name of a person with someone else I know.  This my friends, is disastrous.  My favorite lunchtime go-to spot has the same person working the register daily. Someone I’ve personally wished to be ill, mildly so, at home with a (mildly) sick child or maybe on a bathroom break.  Long enough for me to order my food, wait for my food and leave.  It never happens.  Her name (and I know this because I just called today to hear her answer the phone and then promptly hung up) is Jordan.  My son has a friend named Jordan so I said to myself, “this is simple, this place is near the house and near Jordan, the cashier is named Jordan.”  Two weeks later, damn if I didn’t call her Heather.  How did Heather come from any association to Jordan?  Is it from the heather grey shutters on Jordan’s house? I can’t figure it out.

I’m actually starting to AVOID people, to keep from looking like an ass which doesn’t help in the log run because I still never learn their name.  This starts another disastrous trend, me calling friends (whose names I do remember) to try and get their help.  It goes something like, “you know who I’m talking about, tall, brown hair, has a boy and girl, she drives a red minivan.  Karen?  Karen huh? I guess it could be Karen but I thought it was something with a P though, Paula? Do we know a Paula?  We do, maybe it’s Paula! Oh, you’re right, Paula is the two year old girl of the lady I can’t remember, hmmm Karen you said?”  That never goes well.

Things are at such a desperate level, I had started to rely on my husband to keep track of my many anecdotes and tales of daily ramblings of motherhood so he could relay info to me as needed.  Let me say this clearly.  Texting your significant other on their BlackBerry while they’re in the middle of a presentation to ask, “the guy with the wife who you said looks like Joyce Dewitt that lives a few blocks over and has a son in college and he’s looking for work, who is that?” It never ever goes over as well as you think it should.

So please know this, Should we meet and you say your name and we see each other again and I don’t remember it, that doesn’t mean you don’t mean anything to me. I may forget your name but I won’t forget who you are, what you’re about and the time we shared.  If we see each other a third time and I’m stammering still trying to evoke your name from memory, help me out, don’t hold it against me and know that if we broke bread together, I remembered our exchange.  Prayers you may have asked me to keep you apart of have been prayed and the vacation you’re planning, I’ll ask about.  Assist me every time if needed and know I mean no offense and that it might be true what they say, you forget things when you start having children and I’ve got four – the fact that I remember who I am, may be miraculous in itself.