Where Did I Leave My Life?

I did some research on early onset Alzheimers yesterday.
My brain has been foggy lately. Actually for quite a while. Feels like it is enveloped in thick plastic slowing down the firing of the neurons and resulting in forgetfulness and a general haziness.
There is a woman who comes into The Booze Emporium with her husband and it is obvious that he's got the Alzheimers thing going on. She leads him around the store and talks to him like a child. He has a blank look on his face; in his eyes. He is around my age.
That's what got me thinking. That's what struck fear in my heart.
If my brain turned to pudding, Carol wouldn't dessert me. But she would refill my whiskey bottles with caramel colored water and serve it to me in Crown Royal tumblers. A fate worse than death.
I was reading up on brain exercises that can fight back and help to keep you alert. There were maybe ten things on the list and four of them resonated with me. Memorization, doing math in your head, learning to play an instrument and learning a foreign language.
I began memorizing a poem yesterday. It felt good. My brain worked up a sweat and I had to give it a shower. Worked a couple of math problems.
I have picked up my guitar(s) off and on over the last five years and I need to get back to that. Music is in my soul; expressing it is therapy. Eight years ago I began learning Italian and I was magnificent at it. Such a beautiful language. Got away from it.
There were general tips in this article to improve brain health as well. Exercise regularly. I'm getting back to that. Fitfully but still, trying to regain my Olympic form as it existed in 2011.
Avoid boredom.
I was horrified when I read that.
My life is boring rooftop to the basement. From the shock of the alarm clock to the dead drop back into bed at day's end.
My job is repetitive. So repetitive that I don't need a mantra to meditate. All I have to do is picture myself at work and I am immediately in a trance. The same thing over and over and over again. Even down to the conversations with customers. The same words, the same lame jokes and comments, the same practiced responses on my part.
Jesus.
I come home and CLANG I hear the iron bars slam shut behind me. Actually I feel greedy fingers picking my pocket as I walk up the steps before the clanging. Mortgage Vampire, PSNH, Comcast; I'm trying to make it from my truck to the house and dollar bills are floating out of my wallet into the unforgiving hands of The Insane Corporate Clown Killer Posse.
Then CLANG and I am in prison again.
We exist at a poverty level that paupers laugh at. Can't go out to dinner or movies or baseball games or go clothes shopping or anything shopping; can't afford to drive anywhere. We are prisoners. We go nowhere. We do nothing.
We won't even walk outside to breath in fresh air because it will wear out our shoes faster and they will have to be replaced.
No wonder my brain is atrophying.
I used to hate the expression "if you're bored than you're boring." Didn't make sense to me until I thought about it. It's true; if you are bored than shake things up, make things happen, un-bore yourself.
That applies to individual situations but when your entire life is boring, changing that is like trying to jog through quicksand. It's like trying to play the violin wearing a straight jacket. (?)
I'm stuck in the job situation. The economy sucks, so like Richard Gere in An Officer And A Gentleman, I got nowhere else to go. The Liquor Commission Braintrust refuses to promote me even though I am regularly responsible for functions above my pay grade, for no additional pay. Of course that's the rub; they love to give me part time coin and limited hours for full time responsibility.
Crawling up to a full time position would at least allow Carol and I to go out once in a while. Maybe McDonald's twice a year.
Until then Boredom Is My Enemy.
I'm going to memorize poetry and do the math. I won't promise to play the guitar or learn Italian because I have made those promises before and looked the fool. But I am hopeful.
Exercise is coming around. Soon you will see me in a Speedo and you will applaud.
But the key is changing my life. Exploding it, imploding it, stretching it out, resuscitating it so that the word "life" is not self mockery.
Because caramel colored water ain't gonna take me to where I need to be.