Dear Reader,
Periodically I experience traffic congestion in my brain. I'll be talking to someone and in the middle of a sentence--a perfectly good sentence--that sentence runs off the road. It happened just yesterday. The clever thing I was going to say, came to a screeching halt because I couldn't remember the name of something...(I was going to tell you the name of the thing I forgot yesterday, but I still can't remember what it was.) I hate it when that happens.
In order to solve a problem, I have to understand the "why" behind it. So I've been spending time thinking about what must be going on in my brain, when I forget the name of something. (I know I could blame it on age. But let's not do that today. Roll with me here.)
My irksome forgetfulness; I think it's because of those darn traffic roundabouts. For some reason my brain has decided to install one. Maybe because experts say roundabouts calm traffic and there are fewer accidents. Or in my case, fewer occasions when I'd forget the name of something when I'm in the middle of a conversation. But from my roundabout observations, that's simply not true.
Everybody does slow down when approaching a roundabout, that's true, because nobody is sure where anyone is going. Are cars entering the roundabout going to yield like they're supposed to, or just jump right in? Hesitation is one of the best descriptions of what happens at a roundabout. Everybody stops and starts--it's a state of confusion--and the same thing happens in my conversations.
My friend and I are chatting, I'm in the middle of a sentence, and two other people show up, obviously wanting to add something to the conversation. So now, being the courteous person I am, I slow way...down, mid-sentence, asking the person to my right, "Would you like to proceed with your comment?" I can wait and finish my sentence later, but then the person on my left decides they want to jump in on the conversation too, so now nobody is sure about whose turn it is, words are flying all over the place, round and roundabout we go.
But suddenly the conversation stops short, because everyone is struggling to remember the name of the thing we are talking about. So see, I'm not the only one. It's not my age, it's those darn roundabouts.
Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends.
Suzanne Beecher
Suzanne@DearReader.com
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