Senior Moments or Senior Block?

Someone recently suggested that they didn’t have a senior moment but a senior block. Now some might suggest that a senior block is a first cousin to a senior moment. I might add that in reality, they probably are nearly synonymous except that not all senior moments are problems.

Let’s explore that for a moment. A senior moment might be a hunch that something is amiss. An internal intuitive signal could be a warning that a particular course of action  may not be appropriate or wise. Or necessary.

As we all know, senior moments are a peculiar phenomenon occurring among seniors more readily perhaps than among juniors. But they are not limited to seniors. I remember when we received a fateful phone call telling us that my mother-in-law had been killed in a car accident. Our daughter was two years old at the time.

As we backed the car out of the driveway to go to the airport to journey across country to the funeral, our little daughter tearfully declared, "I don’t want to go." Then she added, "I don’t know where we are going but I don’t want to go."  She was too young to know the dreaded particulars but old enough to sense that something was not quite right.

Senior moments often steer us in the right direction or on to a better path. It’s one thing to lose track of our car keys; it’s quite another not to venture out into a blinding storm. A senior moment, possibly a reawakened bad experience of yesteryear, might save your life.

A senior moment might occur when a grandchild’s birthday was forgotten or altered (a tangible gift is usually expected). When our grandson was six, Nana enclosed a twenty dollar bill in his birthday card. When he called to thank us, I answered the phone. After some chit chat, he said, "Thanks for the dollar." When I asked him if he wanted to talk to his benevolent grandmother, there was a pause. Then a very polite, "No thank you."

Usually he prefers to talk to Nana rather than Papa because she is so much more interesting. Later, his older sister informed us that his favorite TV show had just come on the air. We understood. Nana had looked in vain for just the right gift. It happens.

Senior moments can tell us it’s time to make amends, to pick up the phone, to stay inside and not venture out, to stock up on belated cards, to ignore an impulse, to say "I‘m sorry." They can save us considerable grief as well as impose a bad day on us. Senior moments are here to stay; they are not necessarily fleeting moments or debilitating senior blocks.

Senior moments can be a senior’s worst enemy or best friend. How they perform ultimately is pretty much up to us.