Forgetting major personal events.

[Jockice]

An old friend's mum recently died. I always liked her. Although I and her son were only really mates as teenagers, we still occasionally bump into each other and get on well. And he invited me to his mum's birthday do a few years ago, so I asked him to tell me when the funeral was.

This evening I got a message from a mutual friend giving me a date near the end of the month, one that might prove difficult as I may have to attend something else, an event that takes place over three days but you only have to go to one and were given a choice. As I had nothing urgent on I said I could do any day.

So then emailed the event's organiser to ask if I could not be selected for that day as I'd like to go to this funeral, and lay on the couch for an evening of football on the telly.

After the match had ended and I was just about to go to bed I suddenly realised that there was something familiar about that date. It was only the one my mum had died on. And this year is the 20th anniversary!

I mean how the fuck did that slip my mind? Quite a significant day in my life, yet I'd said i could go to this event, which I probably still could if I now wasn't going to a funeral. At the same place my mum's was. Great.

I feel a bit guilty actually because I really hadn't forgotten except when I got invited to things, in which case it just flew out of my head. Weird.

And suppose the organiser of this three-day thing has already set up the schedule and that is the day she has decided I have to go on? If that is the case I'll have to go for the full sympathy vote now and they'll have to either rearrange the whole thing or do without me, even though in this particular case they can't.

I also unexpectedly shat myself this afternoon and had to drive home on a journey lasting over an hour in my sodden stinking kecks. Successful day all round.

[Gurke and Hare]

And suppose the organiser of this three-day thing has already set up the schedule and that is the day she has decided I have to go on? If that is the case I'll have to go for the full sympathy vote now and they'll have to either rearrange the whole thing or do without me, even though in this particular case they can't.

Is this a work thing? If it is, they should make every effort to swap people over unless they're the cuntiest of employers. There will be more than just you who didn't have anything on so could go any day, I'm sure.

[Mister Six]

Forgetting things AND you shat yourself?

CaBbers are now getting so old we'll have to upgrade our in-jokes from mere baldness to full-on dementia.

[jamiefairlie]

I don't remember anything unless it's written down and then entered into Outlook immediately. It may well be senility but it feels more like having so much dull irritating stuff to fucking do all the time, that my brain never gets time to rest and have a reflective think.

[Jerrykeshton]

my brain never gets time to rest and have a reflective think.

That's the point exactly. I'm not forgetting things as such, but I'm having problems appreciating the passage of time and how long I have to do things.  I'm going on holiday on Friday and I still cannot get my head around how much time I've got to do things.

[Jockice]

Forgetting things AND you shat yourself?

CaBbers are now getting so old we'll have to upgrade our in-jokes from mere baldness to full-on dementia.

Indeed. The end is nigh. I'll probably be dead before the end of the month anyway so that date won't matter. I still have some hair on my head though. Definitely not as much as before but still some.

[Jockice]

Is this a work thing? If it is, they should make every effort to swap people over unless they're the cuntiest of employers. There will be more than just you who didn't have anything on so could go any day, I'm sure.

Not exactly work (I'm unemployed and probably unemployable) but something I've been working on. I might as well tell you anyway. I got accepted onto a playwriting course and my debut piece, along with those of the others on the course, can be seen on stage at the end of the month.

But we will all be working with people on corresponding producing and directing courses and the three-day thing is the final rehearsals, so it all depends on whether 'my' producer and director (and the actor - it's a monologue - who I haven't met yet either) are available on the same days as me. Fingers crossed that by saying I was available for them all I haven't now painted myself into a corner where nobody else can make it except on that day.

Talking of cunty employers, I once missed the leaving do from work of someone I knew in London and who had not only invited me down but said she'd put me up at her place because it was on a Friday night, I was down to work on a Saturday, my boss wouldn't let me have the day off and none of my colleagues would swap with me. I later found out this woman for some reason had really fancied me, so who knows what could have happened. Could literally have changed my entire life. But we had no reason to contact each through her new job, she probably had a nark on that I hadn't come down for the do and we soon lost touch. We'd have been perfect together. We even shared a birthday. Still do as far as I know.

Meanwhile tickets for Poverty: The Tragic Life Of Jockice will be on sale soon at Leeds Playhouse.

[willbo]

I forget the names of teen/20s girlfriends sometimes and it disturbs me. People I thought I loved, even if I only dated them a couple of weeks or whatever. Friends too.

[Jockice]

I forget the names of teen/20s girlfriends sometimes and it disturbs me. People I thought I loved, even if I only dated them a couple of weeks or whatever. Friends too.

When I bumped into the woman who broke my heart/17 years of singledom etc for the first time in 22 years a couple of years ago she called out my name, I looked round at her and went totally blank. I sort of knew I knew her from somewhere but couldn't work out where from. So I introduced the friend I knew to her, who asked how we knew each other and got the reply: "We used to go out with each other." Ah right...

Absolutely bizarre considering the amount of time she'd taken up in my thoughts over the years. She didn't even look all that different. 22 years older obviously, but she's not one of those people who has deteriorated badly.

More recently, I went to the pub to meet some friends at the weekend, and at the table behind me was a bloke who I recognised from somewhere, so we said hello to each other as I went past. After a few minutes it became clear he was on his own and I felt a bit awkward. Should I invite him over to join us? But I didn't know how I knew him. Anyway he might like going to the pub on his own for a quiet pint. You never know. Takes all sorts. I'd sometimes pop into a pub or cafe alone just for a sit-down (or sometimes just because I was bored at home) when I was younger and absolutely hated it if someone would come up and ask me if I was on my own.
Just to make it even worse, he got up to go to the toilet and it turns out he used a walking stick. So my 'don't bother disabled people because I'm one and I hate being bothered myself' instinct came in, combined with an 'is that how I know him?' thing and a 'maybe I should turn round when he comes back and have a chat' feeling.

However there were some people at a table near us who were having a birthday do and were being very loud and I'd been swimming beforehand and my ears were full of water so I could hardly hear my friends without bringing someone else into the equation. So I didn't. I kept putting it off.

After about half an hour he got up and left without saying goodbye. So either he didn't know me that well or he thought I was being an unfriendly prick. I'll have to ask him next time I see him. After I've asked his name and how the fuck I know him.

[Icehaven]

We've recently been pondering what to do for my boyfriend's 40th next year, and several times he's asked what we did for mine as he seems completely unable to remember (medieval banquet and overnight stay night at a fancy hotel.) At various times he's said "That's right, you didn't want to do anything did you", or said we just stayed in because it was lockdown even though it was in 2019, and even claims to remember that we went to the pub with a group of friends. Guess we won't be repeating the experience for his given how memorable he found it.

[Icehaven]

More recently, I went to the pub to meet some friends at the weekend, and at the table behind me was a bloke who I recognised from somewhere, so we said hello to each other as I went past. After a few minutes it became clear he was on his own and I felt a bit awkward. Should I invite him over to join us? But I didn't know how I knew him. Anyway he might like going to the pub on his own for a quiet pint. You never know. Takes all sorts. I'd sometimes pop into a pub or cafe alone just for a sit-down (or sometimes just because I was bored at home) when I was younger and absolutely hated it if someone would come up and ask me if I was on my own.
Just to make it even worse, he got up to go to the toilet and it turns out he used a walking stick. So my 'don't bother disabled people because I'm one and I hate being bothered myself' instinct came in, combined with an 'is that how I know him?' thing and a 'maybe I should turn round when he comes back and have a chat' feeling.

However there were some people at a table near us who were having a birthday do and were being very loud and I'd been swimming beforehand and my ears were full of water so I could hardly hear my friends without bringing someone else into the equation. So I didn't. I kept putting it off.

After about half an hour he got up and left without saying goodbye. So either he didn't know me that well or he thought I was being an unfriendly prick. I'll have to ask him next time I see him. After I've asked his name and how the fuck I know him.

As if it wasn't bad enough that you arranged to meet up with him, forgot, made new arrangements with different friends in the same pub then sat at a table right next to him and didn't have the decency to admit it. No wonder he stormed off after waiting half an hour for an apology. For shame

[Jockice]

As if it wasn't bad enough that you arranged to meet up with him, forgot, made new arrangements with different friends in the same pub then sat at a table right next to him and didn't have the decency to admit it. No wonder he stormed off after waiting half an hour for an apology. For shame

Oh shit!

[dissolute ocelot]

I don't know how people remember the anniversary of deaths. Birthdays are hard enough and they're on Facebook and it's acceptable to ask about birthdays. My father died when I was 15 and I have never been able to remember the exact date although for many years my stepmother/his widow held a dinner to get the family together on the anniversary. I don't know if some people just naturally remember these things, or do actually have calendars with everybody's death marked on them.

[Jockice]

I don't know how people remember the anniversary of deaths. Birthdays are hard enough and they're on Facebook and it's acceptable to ask about birthdays. My father died when I was 15 and I have never been able to remember the exact date although for many years my stepmother/his widow held a dinner to get the family together on the anniversary. I don't know if some people just naturally remember these things, or do actually have calendars with everybody's death marked on them.

There aren't many I know. my mum's (even if I seemed to temporarily forget it), my dad's (a week after my birthday and two days before his), and a friend and his wife's dads (his was a week before my birthday and the funeral was on my birthday, hers was on my birthday itself) and another friend's dad because it was two days after Christmas. But that's about it. And most of my friends and family have at least one dead parent nowadays, not counting other family members. My girlfriend's mum died near the end of last year and her younger brother a few years ago. but I'm not sure of the dates. Know the months but that's about it. And my favourite uncle died the year before and although I know when in the year it was (the funeral was two days after my birthday) I'd have to check for the exact date he left this planet.

I probably know around a dozen birthdays offhand, although some of them are no use to me nowadays Like my parents , that ex and another one who I no longer speak to, and my best mate at school's younger brother who topped himself.. Don't know when he actually died though, except that it was on the birthday of the other friend's wife whose dad died on my birthday. She's not one of the birthdays I can remember. She must be devastated.

 I'm getting on a bit though. It's a wonder I can remember my own name.

[Zetetic]

Unless someone dies of a very seasonally-specific cause - brained with a rotten pumpkin, exploded by a pro-Pope firework, stuck in a chimney etc. - it's probably not terribly interesting exactly when they died.

Rang my partner up on their birthday to tell them one of my parents had died in the early hours of that morning, and I still can't 100% reliably remember what date that was.

[The Guppy]

My mum puts death anniversaries in her diary. I think it's so she can reach out to their loved ones and check they're alright, and that they haven't forgotten their mum is still dead.

[Glebe]

No advice to give Jockice but just wanna say sorry to hear about these woes.

[Jockice]

No advice to give Jockice but just wanna say sorry to hear about these woes.

Cheers mate. But I'm fine. Just think it's a bit weird I got invited to a funeral on the anniversary of my mum's death and didn't realise the significance of the date at the time.

The shitting myself bit wasn't fun though. Especially when someone I know but don't particularly like (he obviously sees me as totally incapable of anything) turned up at the exact point when I was crawling towards my car with my jogging bottoms coming down and them, my underpants and the bottom of my t-shirt covered in crap.  He literally couldn't have timed it better.  He probably thinks that sort of thing regularly happens to me now. But my bowels are usually okay (if anything I tend towards constipation) and there was a specific reason why I was on my hands and knees at the time.

Still, it's all part of life's rich tapestry. Of shirt.

[Jockice]

This is getting silly now. An old friend of mine died last week. Not totally unexpected but still a shame. And guess what day her funeral is?

At least it's in the same city as the one I'm already going to (although at totally opposite ends of it) and there is a two-hour gap between them (unlike me missing Serge's because I was at a friend's mum's at the same time in a different city.)

Monday the 30th is going to be a day of sheer joy for me. Plus  I have to get up early the next day. And I mean really early...

[The Mollusk]

I forget everything constantly because my brain is an ADHD addled hamster in a maze of shit. I have phone reminders, Moonpig alerts and two calendars in my house to tell me when it's my dad's birthday or when my fiancée has a hospital appointment and I still fucking forget.

Even just now I was trying to think of euphemisms to describe my brain and I spaced out on about four different tangents, among them being "what's my favourite Morbid Angel album?" (It's Gateways to Annihilation) and rehearsing for the 500th time what I'm going to ask for at the barber's tomorrow. I looked back down and was surprised to see my phone in my hand with this half written post on the screen.

[jamiefairlie]

I know Ian Curtis's death anniversary to the day but not my mum or dad's 😟

[Rev+]

It's a source of great comfort that my partner's birthday is the day before mine, because I'd have fucked that up so many times.  I've only ever been able to narrow my mother's down to a range of about a week, so have to do the cagey 'so, er, what day of the week is your birthday on this year?' annually.