Everybody I know thinks I'm the most organized person they know.

It used to be true.

Not now.

Oh, I'm still pretty organized. Take my clothes, for example.

Look into my closet and you'll find that all the blouses are on one side, all the pants and long skirts on the other. All the short skirts are together, too.

In the chest of drawers, the socks and pantyhose are rolled up neatly, separated by color, and all the undies are neatly stacked. The sweaters are in one drawer, knit tops in another.

My shoes (there are a lot of them) are all still in their boxes and divided into categories: work shoes, dress shoes, casual shoes, boots.

And it's not just my own clothes, it's the clothes of my Significant Other, too. He jokes I'm so organized that when he gets out of the shower and wraps himself in a towel, I'm itching to get my hands on it and get it back on the rack in the bathroom before he's finished with it.

The kitchen is in order, and my personal papers are in neatly labeled folders in a file cabinet.

My desk at work is well-ordered, too.

So what's not organized?

My head.

My head is not organized at all.

I can buy a birthday gift for a friend and then forget to mail it.

Lock myself out of the house because I left the keys inside.

Remember to take my cell phone with me, but forget to charge it.

Fly out of the office, briefcase and camera in hand, but leave my purse behind.

Get to my manicure appointment early but forget altogether about the haircut appointment.

Take my umbrella to work, but leave it in the car.

I could go on, but it gets boring.

Maybe I'm just getting old, a thought I've been reluctant to entertain.

Those were my thoughts when I toddled off to bed last night, trying to remember where I'd left my glasses (for the 47th time).

Some time during the night, I woke up and realized what's really going on.

A few short years ago, I lived alone and was responsible only for myself. Get up, go to work, come home. Lather, rinse, repeat. I could have lived my life with my eyes closed.

And then, out of the blue, things started to happen.

My mother, my father and one of my two brothers passed away, and right behind them, several aunts and uncles.

I no longer live alone. Instead of being responsible only for myself and my list of things to do each day, there is someone else to consider. Someone else who has a list of things to do each day that has to be factored into my list. Who has clothes that must be organized into their proper places, of course.

I live in a different house in a different city â€" a new address and three new phone numbers.

All of my closest friends are at least 300 miles away, and instead of seeing them every day and catching up at lunch, it's a phone call, a letter, or an email to stay in touch.

My daughter divorced and remarried, inheriting a daughter, and is now expecting her first child. My brother, at age 43, married for the first time. My sister moved to a new zip code, and the place I always knew as "home" belongs to someone else now. New addresses, new phone numbers, new names.

I retired after more than 30 years with the same company and began work in a completely different occupation, one I'd dreamed of for years. New faces at work, more new phone numbers, more things to learn.

Can you really teach an old dog new tricks?

Yes, but sometimes it takes a little longer.

Most people experience lifetime changes like these at a slower pace. For me, they've been compressed into only a few years.

Small wonder that I'm confused a lot of the time. It's not just that I have more things on my mind â€" it's also that the things on my mind are completely different things.

Nothing is where it used to be, including my glasses (which, I'm sorry to say, are missing again this morning).

Mostly, change is good for us. It's stagnation that is the enemy. New experiences, new faces, new places in our lives, are good things, even if they come at us a little too quickly to absorb readily.

I'm adjusting to my new circumstances.

The life I'm living now is one I never expected to have and much happier than the one I used to have. Even if I can't find my glasses.

Editor's note: As if to prove her point, our columnist even had to dash home Friday morning to fetch the copy of this article, which she neglected to remember to submit.