It's not like Terry and I are 80 years old or anything. We're not even officially empty nesters yet.
But to my surprise, I have trouble remembering the days when all seven members of our family lived together at 30025 Miller Avenue. The last time it happened, I think, was 2015. Maybe 2016.
Which for the math-impaired isn't even a decade ago.
Yet things get blurry when I try to recall what the mornings were like, or how we all squeezed in around the kitchen table for dinner. I was at work quite a bit of the time, of course, but I was there enough that I should be clearer on the details.
What I do remember is general chaos most of the time. Sports, band, church activities, movie nights, sleepovers, vacations. It was great, but it has all run together in my increasingly addled mind.
It's the small-but-important details that have escaped my brain. Who slept in which room? Who left the house first in the morning? At what age did they start spending more time with their friends than with us? Were Terry and I the only ones who woke up for late-night infant feedings, or did the newborns also awaken their siblings?
It's all a jumbled mass that has separated itself into two broad periods of time: the years when Elissa, Chloe, Jared and Melanie lived with us (1994 to 2022) and the years when it has just been Terry, Jack and me in the house (2022 to the present).
The particulars are increasingly fuzzy.
Naturally, this effect is most pronounced with my 30-year-old daughter Elissa. I know she lived with us for the first 20 or so years of her life, and I remember many individual moments and milestones, but the day to day is indistinct.
What did she eat for breakfast? How often did she hang out in the living room and talk with us? Where did she do her homework?
You got me. I was there, but I just can't recall much of it.
I would feel much better if other middle-aged parents consoled me with tales of their own kid-related amnesia. Otherwise, I can only conclude that my cognitive decline is accelerating and I am that much closer to being a drooling mess who can't even remember yesterday, let alone 10 years ago.