The Day I Forgot A Word I've Known For Thirty Years

There I was. Mid-sentence. Talking about something completely normal, minding my own business, being a fully functional adult with a working vocabulary.

And then, nothing.

Gone. Not "give me a second, I know this," gone.

The word packed a tiny suitcase, didn't leave a note, and simply moved out of my brain like a shit housemate who owes me two months' rent.

I have known this word for thirty years. I've said it a thousand times. I've probably taught it to a child.

And in that exact moment, my brain handed me a loading screen and a shrug.

So obviously, I did what any woman in this situation does: I stood there like a Victorian widow who'd just received bad news by telegram, and started doing interpretive dance instead of talking.

"It's the thing—" gestures vaguely, "you know, the—" more gesturing, now essentially miming, "it's like—"

At this point I wasn't communicating, I was auditioning for Charades. And the really infuriating part? I could feel the word.

It was right there, smug, lurking in some back corner of my brain like it was hiding from a house inspection. I knew its vibe. I knew its energy.

Language does not work on vibes, and yet here we were.

Then, obviously, it came back. Twenty minutes later. In the shower. While driving. At 2:17am, uninvited, like:

"Anyway, what did I miss?"

Rude. Absolutely rude.

Okay so what the actual hell is happening here

Let's be clear: nobody warns you about this part. Everyone's very keen to tell you about hot flushes and mood swings and periods going full rogue agent.

Nobody mentions that your brain might start quietly hiding your own vocabulary from you for sport.

Here's what's actually going on, minus the mysticism: oestrogen isn't just involved in your reproductive system, it's involved in memory, concentration, and word retrieval too.

When oestrogen fluctuates during perimenopause, those cognitive functions can wobble along with it. This is sometimes called "brain fog," and word-finding difficulty is one of its most common (and most annoying) features.

The important bit: the word usually isn't gone. It's not deleted, it hasn't been erased from your hard drive.

Your brain is just having trouble retrieving it in the moment you need it, which is somehow always the worst possible moment, because brains have a sense of humour and it's a bad one.

You don't forget the word "floccinaucinihilipilification" while sitting alone with zero stakes. No. You forget the word "appointment" while someone is actively asking you about your appointment.

You forget a name you've known for a decade while introducing that actual person. Your brain has impeccable comedic timing and absolutely no loyalty.

The bit nobody talks about: the panic afterward

Here's the truth, forgetting the word wasn't the hard part for me. The spiral afterward was.

Because the second your brain glitches, it's very easy to catastrophize. Especially if you're exhausted. Especially if you're not sleeping.

Especially if nobody's ever properly explained why this is happening, so your brain just fills the silence with:

"Well. This is it. We're declining. It's over."

Meanwhile, the actual explanation is way less dramatic: you're probably just running on fumes, juggling nine things at once, sleep-deprived, hormonally unstable, and your brain has 47 tabs open and one of them is playing music you can't locate. That's not a breakdown.

That's a Tuesday.

And can we talk about how the medical system handles this?

If you've ever mentioned brain fog to a doctor and been met with a polite blink and "well, you are getting older" — I'm sorry, and also, no. Cognitive symptoms in perimenopause are real, documented, and hormonally driven, not just an inevitable tax on existing long enough.

You're allowed to push back on being waved off with a vague shrug about ageing when there's an actual explanation with your name on it.

And while we're here, no, the $40 "brain health" gummy some wellness account is selling you is not a substitute for sleep, stress management, or an actual conversation with your GP about what's going on hormonally. Nice try though, wellness industry.

Sit down.

The new rule: we do not spiral over a missing noun

Here's what I'm choosing instead:

• I'm allowed to forget the word. I'm allowed to pause and say, "I know what this is, my brain's just withholding the evidence right now."
• I'm allowed to describe around it instead of finding the exact word immediately. Communication still counts if it takes the scenic route.
• I'm allowed to just Google it, because we live in the future and there's no prize for retrieving vocabulary unassisted.
• I'm allowed to circle back later and yell "THE WORD WAS COLANDER" at an unrelated moment, to nobody, for closure.

Because at some point we have to stop treating every blip like proof we're falling apart. Our brains aren't machines.

They're not built to perform flawlessly while running on broken sleep, hormonal chaos, and the invisible mental load of remembering everyone else's dentist appointments too.

The bottom line

Forgetting a word doesn't mean you're forgetting who you are. It doesn't mean your intelligence has quietly relocated without forwarding an address. It means your hormones are doing something real and explainable, and your brain occasionally needs an extra second to find its own files.

The word will come back. It usually does, often at 3am, often mid-shower, often at the single most useless moment possible.

When it does, you're fully entitled to look into the middle distance and mutter, "there you are, you little bastard," and carry on with your day.

You didn't lose your mind. You just misplaced a noun. Frankly, you've done the same with your keys, and everyone survived that too.

This post is for general information and isn't a substitute for personalised medical advice. If cognitive changes are worrying you or significantly affecting daily life, it's worth raising with your GP.