Remembering the Definition and Forgetting the Word

I had a scary experience this morning. I was finishing a poem for a contest on writing.com and I needed a specific word. I could not remember the word, I knew the word’s definition, but the word itself escaped me. The harder I tried to remember the word the more difficult it became.

The word I was looking for was apprentice. I knew that its simplest definition was someone learning a trade, which was the problem. Dictionaries will give you definitions, but you have to know the word before you can find what it means and I could not remember the word.

The poem I was writing required a synonym for apprentice. After several minutes of frustration, I decided to go to an online dictionary and look up beginner. The dictionary showed apprentice as a synonym of beginner, so I had the word I was looking for. It took me several more minutes to find the specific word I wanted. I finished the poem and submitted it.

I now have to decide if this morning’s memory problem is an issue, I need to worry about. I am now wondering if it is an indication of Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia or just the ordinary results of stress. When I was younger, I did not worry about these things. I am 66 and my mother had Alzheimer’s disease, so that may be why I am worried about forgetting a word, but not the definition.