The opposite of an elephant

I’m a bit like the opposite of an elephant, I always forget. It means I have trouble staying angry at people about specific things for very long because my mind can’t hold onto the reason for the feeling.

Instead it goldfishes its way through menopausal life being furious about something new every few moments. DD finds it very exhausting because he’s not the outraged type. I marvel at how peaceful it must be inside his head.

As I’ve previously blogged, I even forget people sometimes, which is awkward when they very clearly remember me, often by name.

My inability to retain anger explains my zen relationship with my ex-husband. Our marriage breakdown feels a bit like childbirth – I vaguely recall it being horribly painful and I don’t want to do it again, but the specific details are murky.

I was searching through prior blog posts about forgetting people’s names … to remind myself … when I stumbled across this vignette from 2015.

I’ve forgotten just about everything, both good and bad, that my ex-husband ever said to me. Only two remarks remain.

When I told him – post break-up – that I would always love him, he replied: “I will always hold you in the highest regard.”

Burn.

Just before we broke up we went to Bunnings and I gazed longingly at the most fabulous barbecue system, with a sink and bar fridge and wok burner.

Our barbecue was a rusted heap that he refused to replace, I suspect because he knew he wasn’t going to be using it in the future. A bit like he kept changing the subject when I tried to talk to him about replacing our rusted heap of a car.

When I expressed my desire for the whizz-bang barbecue, he intoned: “Alana, happiness is not to be found in a new barbecue.”

Burn.

Now that he’s no longer worried that I might want him back, Fatal Attraction style, he’s much more warm and fuzzy towards me and my material desires. The card he gave me for my 50th had a lovely message in it and he’s been very complimentary about my recent renovations. I wouldn’t say we love love each other, but … I dunno, it’s hard to describe. Whatever it is I’m very grateful for it because it means I have someone I can talk to when things go a bit pear-shaped with the kids. I think it must be so difficult for parents who don’t speak to their exes to have to deal with everything alone, without the person who helped create their kid and loves them just as much as you.

Anyways, yesterday I had a rage hangover from the weekend, which manifests itself as a vague miasma of sadness.

Last night the youngest was at her dad’s place and the eldest was a zombie as a result of insanely bad insomnia and went to bed about 7.30pm. So things were pretty quiet in the household.

I amused myself by writing alcohol stories and trying to join a social media scheduling platform, which was soooooo frustrating and almost reignited my rage again. Being an almost-53-year-old digital “expert” can be very challenging! I will try again this morning.

Oh and as an aside … Studies have shown that elephants are among the smartest species in the animal kingdom. In fact, some scientists believe elephants are as smart as dolphins and chimpanzees.

An elephant’s brain is like a human’s brain in both structure and complexity. Researchers have found that elephants exhibit many behaviours that reveal substantial intelligence, including grief, altruism, mimicry, play, art, use of tools, and self-awareness.

As for whether they never forget, Wonderopolis reckons that’s not true all the time because all elephants forget things from time to time. 

How’s your memory? Sharp as a tack or screwed?

Song of the day: Simple Minds “Don’t you forget about me”