OPINION: Do you have SML too?

Mrs. Griz told me she has a new disease: SML.

"What is SML?" I asked. "Sympathetic memory loss," she responded. Then she explained.

Sympathetic memory loss, Mrs. Griz said, is what happens when you know something and can recall it any time except, of course, when someone else can't remember it and asks you to help them out. Then, it seems, so the requesting party won't feel so alone and like they're losing their mind, you sympathize and can't remember the tidbit of information either. I guess misery loves company.

No, I haven't found this new disease in any medical books even though there are diseases and acronyms for about every other possible ailment that one might get or imagine getting. But, I know it's true because it has happened to me and seems to be happening a lot more often as I grow older. Someone will ask me about something I know as well as my right hand (or was it my left?) and I suddenly can't recall.

I used to think I had CMF -- congestive mind failure -- but it might be SML or a combination of SML and CMF. Does that make it SMLCMF?

I guess you could say it's the story of my life -- another meaning of the SML acronym -- because of the frequency of SML in my life.

When this happens, it bugs me to death! It may be sympathetic to the person asking, but it then dumps the full weight of mind failure upon me. The asking party may go away a bit perplexed but feeling OK and in good company, but I am so bugged about not being able to remember what I know I know that I spend the rest of the day trying to remember what it is I should not have forgotten.

Now, I don't know who has this disease worse, Mrs. Griz or me, because we both suffer from it. It could be contagious in some way, who knows? But it is hard to tell who has it worse because we both, at the same time, seem to be unable to remember things we know at any other moment when we are not trying to recall it.

It's at SML moments like those that one or the other tries to find the word, name, or answer on the computer or smartphone so that the day is not lost to trying to remember something tucked safely away in a drawer of our minds which just will not open.

To be honest with you, I wish SML stood for selective memory loss because there are a lot of things I'd like to forget but can't. But no matter how often I hit the "delete" and "empty trash" buttons in my brain, some of those memories just seem to pop back up again when I least expect it.

When I first determined to write this column about SML, I had a great ending in mind, but do you think I could remember it now? I asked Mrs. Griz, and she couldn't remember it either. It'll come to me sometime after the paper is out but, until then, I may be miserable trying to remember it.

Randy Moll is the managing editor of the Westside Eagle Observer. He may be contacted by email at [email protected]. Opinions expressed are those of the author.