I remember once, when I was visiting my hometown — I don’t recall which phase of my nomadic life I was in, so I don’t know if I was home from Waco, Nashville, Spain, Mesquite or seclusion — and I was walking into Wal Mart with my Dad, and whatever the topic was, I said something, and he responded, “You are way too selfish to have a child.” And I have no memory of what was said next. I can imagine that there was a slight twinge of pridefulness that poked me ever-so-briefly, but I can also imagine that there was a tidal wave of recognition and relief that he, once again, had proven that he knew me better than I knew myself!

A very strange sound startled me awake this morning, around 4:11 am — it sounded like a weakened wail — like something or someone was in some kind of distress. I thought about ignoring it, and then my brain hijacked my thinking, and in a matter of nanoseconds, I was able to consider the following possibilities for the source of the sound:

• Luci(fer), our little geriatric, mostly-toothless white dog had finally given up the ghost, and my son was going to wake up with his cuddly companion dead as a door knell in his bed
• My son, who is a remarkably historically healthy human — he had one (single) and two (doubled) ear infections as an infant, has slogged through the flu exactly three times in 15.5 years and has barfed a total of less than five times since starting school at age 4 — had ratcheted up the volume on his death rattle just to wake me up and remind me that I was too selfish to have a child (or else I would have known that he was terminally ill (which he most definitely is not)
• The person I had heard was arrested at a nearby intersection for driving while intoxicated, possession of a crap-ton of automatic and semi-automatic weapons and a kilo of cocaine had escaped the local jail and returned to the neighborhood to draw and quarter an associate

I got out of bed, calmly proceeded to use the restroom, pulled on some pants, picked up my glasses and wandered into my son’s room to check some pulses. Luci looked at me like I was insane, Gus the Poodle leapt up, always happy to see me, and my son lay sleeping peacefully. I checked his pulse just to be safe, though.

Anxiety much?

I can’t help but wonder to what degree any of that is a typical reaction.

Most of my life, I have been a fairly vigilant person, but I have grown to recognize as an adult that I am, in fact, hyper-vigilant. I’m not necessarily mad about that — I don’t think anyone or much of anything is going to sneak up on me. I’m difficult to surprise. Which keeps me alive. And underwhelmed. Wait. Can feeling overwhelmed result in being underwhelmed? Sometimes, I long to be oblivious. Some would say that I have achieved that in a spectacular fashion from time to time. In many ways, I suppose I am just that — unfazed by not maintaining a spotless and clutter-free kitchen counter. Or an always-made-bed-with-throw-pillows-that-match-the-dust ruffle. Or a freakishly tidy underwear and sock drawer.

First of all, I don’t have a dust ruffle. Secondly, how did this blog post move so gracefully from a random memory about a 35-year-old conversation in a Wal Mart parking lot to a clumsy pontification about personality traits?

Because it’s me. That’s how.

I was recently evaluated at the Baylor Memory Center as part of an inquisition to determine if there is evidence of premature cognitive decline. I talked to my doctor at my annual physical in October of 2023 about my concerns that I might be experiencing symptoms of such. He referred me to those experts with the disclaimer that it could take some time to get in to see them. No joke. He sent the referral that day. And they called me to set up an appointment in February of 2024. They called during the day, and while glad to hear from them, I was not able to stay on the phone long enough with the kind lady to actually make the appointment because someone called me on the radio, and I had to ask if I could call her back. She kindly obliged, saying she had called me from a direct line, and I could reach her there anytime. I thanked her and said, “I’ll call you back. Unless I forget.” We both laughed, and I answered the radio call.

I called her back in April. She made my appointment for August 21st.

I went, sat through a few hours of some very interesting and somewhat rigorous testing. And returned two weeks later to go over the results with the neuropsychologist, Dr. Smernoff. It was muy interesting. He basically told me I was a freak. I had a perfect score on some test where I had to reproduce a drawing of a somewhat complicated figure the evaluator showed me. Several times, with different writing implements. He said he would have taken off a point because of a slightly offset triangle but that he would honor the evaluator’s score. I wasn’t mad. There were a couple of vocabulary tests — I scored in the 99th percentile on each of those. But I had trouble on another one where I had to name as many words as I could think of that started with specific letters — I think they were “a”, “s” and “f.” My score there was not as impressive. He said if there were one area of very slight concern, that would be it — the notable difference between how advanced my vocabulary is compared to how few words I had generated on the “a,” “s,” “f” task.

The “freak” tests were the ones where the evaluator would give me a list of words and ask me to say them back to her from memory. And I had to recall as many words as I could at a few different times during the evaluation. Same concept with a string of numerals. On both of those tests, I performed the best on the last phase – I recalled the most words many minutes later, and I recalled the most correct list of numerals when I was asked to list them in reverse order many minutes later.

What the heck does that mean about my brain? “I’m glad you asked,” he said. “You like a challenge.” And I said, “So, I need to take a class?” He raised an eyebrow and gave a little shrug, and picked up a book he had grabbed off his shelf earlier in the evaluation called The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain And The Making of the Western World. A weighty title. Not about God Himself. But rather about the difference between right and left hemispheres of the brain. He was suggesting that I could challenge myself quite enough by diving into the reading and studying of the book.

That would be great, Boss, but I might fall asleep. I got the audiobook. It’s only 27 hours and 15 minutes long. I’ll definitely have to take notes. Because it will be fascinating. But I won’t remember a thing about it if I don’t write it down. And forget about holding the book in my hands and reading it the old fashioned. That hurts my neck way too much. Perhaps the audiobook while on an airplane. Maybe that’s the ticket.

By the way, I think I am too selfish to have a child. But I do have one, and I love him very much. And while the teenage years are trying, I do solidly believe I have raised a genuinely good human. With a fascinating brain. A lot like mine. Which makes me crazy sometimes. 😉