memento

Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.

I yelled at my mother once. I stole Post-its from the office. I spit gum out on the sidewalk. And oh yeah, I’m a stalker.

I’ve tried to stop, but I’m all about the search and destroy. Not so much on the destroy, but very big on the search. You can run, but you can’t hide. That’s my middle name.

Partly, it’s because I have trouble letting go. Mostly, it’s because I don’t remember things, and so I need to hang on to everything and everyone, forever, so they can tell me what it is that I don’t remember, once I forget. And I don’t remember anything.

Well, that’s not entirely true. I remember some things, but there are great big gaps. Not just a night here and there, but months. Years.

I keep records. Journals. Phone bills. Medical reports. Photographs. Class pictures. Date books. I write down appointments, even after they’ve happened.

Don’t bother asking me what I did over the weekend. I’ll stand there with a blank look on my face, too embarrassed to get out my Filofax to find out. I may get it – the memory of two days ago – eventually, but it’s a struggle of reconstruction.

I have boxes of my diaries, date books, and phone books going back to fourth grade. Evidence of a life I don’t remember. I keep a three-ring binder with a page or more for each year, starting with the year I was born.

Each January, I pull out the binder and my date book, and I re-create the past year. I list whom I was sleeping with, whom I was dating (not always the same), and any event I think I should remember (the circus, a vacation, a car accident, an illness, or a death). If it’s not written down, it’s gone. Poof!

Sometimes, all I remember is the act of writing it down. There’s also an Excel spreadsheet with hyperlinks, photos and an added column for where I was drinking that year (this column is particularly full, and the fact that it needs to be included at all may have something to do with why I remember so little).

Other people remember my life. An old college classmate recently recounted the time I took her to Plato’s Retreat for her 19th birthday. I don’t doubt it, but I also don’t remember it. Not even a little bit. I shrugged and smiled, too embarrassed to ask – what happened? Did we have fun? What was I wearing? Did I run into anyone I knew there? Was I drunk? (Of course I was drunk. I was always drunk.)

Sometimes, I will ask. My current friends understand my Memento syndrome and know that it’s nothing personal. Just because I don’t remember doing something with you, being at your house or having you in mine – it’s no reflection on how much I care about you.

I love you, I really do, I just don’t remember you.