Cognitive Competence

I have always been someone who has loved words. I even have favourite words like ‘penultimate’ and ‘serendipity’. I have always been quite articulate in the use of words and able to express myself. I have worked in radio previously – many years ago – as a co-host on a breakfast show and had to be ready with a quick retort or response. I wrote advertisements for radio. I write poetry. I have always been quite good at Scrabble or online ‘Words with Friends’.

I say all these things, not to brag, but to illustrate that the use of words, both spoken and written has always been an important thing for me. A part of my very being. Of who I am.

I have had some comments made to me this week about my abilities with words. One was from my cousin when she asked me how long it takes me to write a Blog. Most times, a few minutes at the keyboard will produce what I want for a Blog. She replied that it would take her ‘hours’ to work out what to say.

I recently wrote a poem for someone for a bit of fun at work. Again, that particular poem, although quite long took me maybe five minutes to write.

Today, I went for my usual morning coffee around 9.15am. I have started doing ‘Wordle’ every morning while I have my caffeine fix. There is a group of people who also stop for coffee at the same time and also do the Wordle. We compare notes on who has got the answer in the least goes. The maximum is six. When I arrived this morning, they looked at me expectantly. I told them, I had not even looked at it. Five minutes later I had guessed the word. They were quite impressed and said ‘Did you just sit down and do that now?’ I responded that I had. Several of them said that it took them quite a long time usually.

As I said before in the post, I point out these things not to brag, but because it got me thinking. I have probably taken for granted up till now my abilities with language, both spoken and written. It has made me think about how I would/will feel if I lost that ability. I think perhaps the loss of being able to think quickly to do word puzzles, to write poems, to play Scrabble or Words with Friends would be a huge loss for me. It is hard to think of losing that part of my life and it would/will be a huge sense of grief for me.

I hope that my daily word puzzles will help to keep me cognitively intact for a bit longer. That writing my Blog and thinking about what I want to say will also help me. Just as exercise is good for the management of Parkinson’s, using my brain to solve puzzles and write can only be a good thing to continue doing to exercise my brain and protect my cognitive capacity.

To use one of my favourite words it is ‘serendipitous’ that I decided to embark upon this journey of my Blog. I entered into this Blog with the hope that it might help me process my thoughts and feelings and maybe also help others. A blind leap of faith that I could produce something of value. It has indeed been serendipitous that it has come to be such a huge part of my life for I couldn’t have imagined how important it was to become to me!

Serendipity is an unplanned fortunate discovery.^[