WAIT A MINUTE I’LL GET YOU THAT WORD

There are those days when familiar phrases and words wave to me from afar. The words I need are lost in the weeds and I flail about, beating the bushes for that word I know I know. My brain has developed some sort of mental quicksand where the sticky-toffee-honey-coated words I know are slurped into a quagmire of forgetfulness. Mind you, it isn’t as if I don’t know what I intend to say. I’m simply unable to retrieve all the words I need in order to say it out loud. The whole thought is very clear. But during the journey from thought to speech, while riding my brain waves, the words I need disappear. Obviously, there is a glitch in my brain’s transmission system.

However, on a more positive note, I am in good company, as many of my friends appear to be suffering from the same mental blitzkrieg. Last week, when a friend was telling me about her trip to visit family, she mentioned they all went to visit someone who was in a … ah … um …

There she stopped, at a loss for the word she wanted. And I, ever helpful and annoying, filled in the blank …    “Assisted Living Facility?” I offered, pleased with myself for having the word on hand.  “No.” she said, “The next one.”

Well, I knew what she meant … so we both stopped and set off on a mental quest to retrieve the word from no-mans-land.  Not assisted living, but the one beyond, where you are just waiting it out. The one that sounds sort of like wholistic medicine, or hopeless, or ho hum hospital, or … “Hospice!” I cried.

“Yes!” She replied, “Hospice.”

What a relief! Our mutual thought process finally shook out the right word, and once again, our conversation continued.

Afterwards, I was struck by how comfortable I have become living with a glitchy brain. Instead of the normal form of conversation I practiced in my younger years, I now share the work of finding the right words to express not only my own thoughts, but the thoughts of others as well. And in a sense this activity creates a new form of esprit de cour between friends, as we work together to share our thoughts. Puzzle lovers and Wordle doers have nothing on those of us wracking our brains to find the word for the end of someone else’s sentence. And, oh the satisfaction as we congratulate ourselves for getting it right, basking in the pure pleasure of retrieving the right word. And how nice that it needn’t be the last word, but instead the bridge to better understanding one another, and sharing one’s thoughts.

Glitch brain be damned!