I can sympathize with President Biden’s recent comments about cognitive tests. I believe he said something to the effect that every day is a mental challenge when you are president. And an old one, at that. My words, not his.

It doesn’t just happen to people in power. When you reach a certain age—and it varies for everyone—every morning feels like your brain is undergoing a pop quiz about yesterday’s events. What movie did we watch last night? What did I have for dinner? Did I take my pills this morning?

The answers: A weird Netflix series called Baby Reindeer, leftovers, and yes.

Yesterday, my ex-husband sent me a text asking the name of our former neighbor; the one that was a doctor. I could picture him, remember that his girlfriend’s name ten years ago was Audrey, and the reason that he and his first wife split is because she wanted him to go to Afghanistan to fight for women’s rights. I’m not making that up. Imagine how he felt. I also recalled that he was a good guy.

Lots of details, but his name was gone.

 I reached out to my other former neighbor who is also an author. Brian has written one book about the Japanese internment camps during World War II and announced that was it. Smart man. “It’s Dave G— “, he said: The final piece of the puzzle to add to a myriad of odd memories about the fellow.

I sent a reply to my ex announcing the name without giving him a hint of my mental shortfall. “Why did you ask?” I wrote. He said he could remember the man’s first name, just not the last. Well, he is a year younger than me.

The place where my man and I now live is a continuous care facility, not unlike the one in the Thursday Murder Club Mysteries series, which I am now reading and enjoying. To get in we had to be in good health, which included a cognitive test. I was nervous about it not just for me but for my man. It’s not as though we are in the throes of dementia. It’s that we have so much information in our brains, that we sometimes loose bits and pieces.

Isn’t that what everyone over the age of sixty says when they can’t remember something?

I went first. The nurse and I had a delightful conversation that started with her asking me to identify the pictures of three items on a piece of paper. “Black cat, apple and old-style phone,” I responded. We went onto other topics, which included the stress of taking a cognitive test.

Ten minutes later she said, “What we the three items on the piece of paper.”

No problem. Cat, apple and phone was my response. A-plus and a lot of laughing about how one man went blank but remembered several weeks later when the nurse saw him on campus. I was wondering how he got in, but he must have demonstrated enough other mental acuity in the interview to get a passing grade—or they needed his money.

Next to take the “test” was my man. “Focus,” I said when we passed each other in the doorway. I sat outside the test room for ten minutes, fidgeting, until he emerged all smiles. He had done as instructed, and he did remember the three items. Phew.

Yesterday at lunch with three new friends, who are also neighbors, we discussed memory issues. It seems to be the topic on everyone’s minds these days. All of us know that it doesn’t get better; it only gets worse. Let me say that again. It doesn’t get better; it only gets worse no matter who you are.

“I laughed when I first came here because they insisted that we wear these name badges,” one of the women said. “Now I’m grateful.”

There was a nodding of the heads. We all had them on.

I’m going to try to hold onto Dave’s name. Ask me again in a couple of months, and we’ll see if it’s still there.