My declining years

It's been very obvious to me that my body is declining. Unfortunately, so is my mind. Case in point:

I've always excelled at math. I can add as fast with pen and paper as I can with an adding machine, with fewer mistakes. Since my husband isn't as good at it and has to use an adding machine and still makes mistakes, for the last 16 years of our marriage I've balanced the checkbook with pen and paper. Occasionally I'm distracted and make an error. In that case, I go back and recheck my figures and catch the mistake. Today, no distractions. I wanted to do it one time only, so I went extra slowly and carefully. At the end, I was way off. Groaned, and redid it. Same results. Again. Same results.

In frustration and desperation I went to the bank. I showed them what I had as the balance in the check register. It was the same as they had. We looked closer. My reckoning showed that I had added the outstanding checks to their balance when I should have subtracted them. There is no excuse. I've balanced checkbooks for at least 60 years. Unmistakable conclusion is that my mind is declining. It's scary!