In my late 60s, I notice that, for instance, when I read the paper my eyes tend to slide over the text (unless I really want to understand a point). In the 'old days', I read everything voraciously. And I finished every article, every book, as though I'd been given an order. Now, I figure if after 15 pages I'm still not interested in the subject, the writer has failed me, and I'm under no obligation to read further. That was an epiphany for me.

For the rest, I suspect that it's a case of selective inattention. More things slide by now. My memory is still good, if -and ONLY if- I focus on what is being said or on the name being given, at the time. In the past, that recall was effortless.

I have a theory about why we don't seem to age internally. In a family when you see someone every day, you don't notice changes but someone coming home after being gone six months or so is startled at how someone has changed; just so in your own mind you're never 'gone'.

That doesn't explain the compression of time though. I swear time has gotten to be like a large ice cube pressed on a hot stove- it sputters and spatters and melts. Absolutely melts. Gone, with nothing but an outline left behind, and that only for a moment. I remember reading that after a certain age - or stage- the only constant is that each decade goes by in half the time the previous decade traveled. It's certainly been true for me, and it's not done yet. whooooooosssshhhhh...