Losing My Mind by Kerri Sackville

The other day, I phoned a friend from my land line. Just as I was calling her, my mobile phone started to ring. I hung up the landline and picked up the mobile, but at that exact moment the call dropped out. I looked at the ‘missed call’ to see who it was and got quite a surprise.

It was me. Yes, I’d called myself.

I am not generally a hypochondriac when it comes to my health, with one very significant exception. I am quite convinced that I am losing my mind. Day after day little pieces of evidence build up to form a picture of one with severe memory deficiencies.

I will regularly drive down to the local shop for, say, cheese, and return instead with Milo, peaches and yoghurt, none of which my son wants to put in his sandwich. I will frequently go out to pick my daughter from dance class, and drive instead to her school, which unfortunately is located in the exact opposite direction. I am always forgetting arrangements with friends, not because I have forgotten to mark them on my calendar, but because I have forgotten to look at my calendar, which hangs directly in front of my face.

It gets worse. Two weeks ago, I bought some fairly expensive cosmetics, took them home and immediately lost them. After turning the house upside down, I had a sudden unpleasant flash of recollection. Could I have? Surely not. But yes. There they were, at the bottom of the garbage bin, where I had dropped them when I strolled into the kitchen. Not good.

Then there was the Great Missing Keys Disaster. I have been very careful with my keys in recent times, after losing them almost daily for an entire year. My poor daughter was late to school so often that she was actually applauded by her classmates on the one occasion she arrived before the bell.

I found an appropriate place for my keys, on the kitchen bench next to the kettle, and made sure I placed them there without fail every time I walked in the door. Then, last Sunday, as we were all leaving the house to go to the beach, once again, I couldn’t find them. My keys had vanished.

My husband and the kids and I searched the house, to no avail. We looked in many of the regular suspects – the laundry, the office, in my bag, in the lettuce crisper, in my pockets, under my bed. They weren’t there. I felt hopeless.

“It’s over,” I told my husband tearfully. “I’m becoming demented! You’ll have to put me in a home in another couple of years!”

“Mum! I found the keys!” shouted my son. “They were wrapped in Boo’s blanket!”

We all turned to look at the four year old. “Sorry Mummy!” she said, grinning.

I wasn’t demented! It wasn’t my fault! I dried my tears, grabbed the keys, and we all headed out to the car.

“To the beach!” I said cheerfully, and drove in the opposite direction.

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