Don't You Forget About Me

DAY TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN: The Pauper Remembers...ish

Memory.  She's a tricky vixen.  The kind you pour into your glass thinking it's a good idea, but ending the night in a world of regret.

Your brain can only hold so many.  It's how it has been programmed since the dawn of time.  Much like your inbox, it will delete certain entries when it grows too full.  But unlike your inbox, it doesn't give you an option of what to preserve.

Why is it that I can vividly remember my brother explaining a nightmare he had about a monkey popping a balloon outside his window and bursting into histrionics, but I can't remember what I was doing exactly one week ago today?

It's rather unfair, isn't it?  That our brain gets to make these decisions about what it cares to preserve, but our conscious mind has no say.  Oftentimes, I've had friends recite moments of comedic impact that we shared, and I am forced to smile and nod and pretend that I have any recollection of what they are talking about.  And I search my mind for that moment, but it is lost.

When we lose moments that are important to others, do they really continue to exist?  As a writer, the most important tool you have is your brain.  (If The Diving Bell and the Butterfly taught us anything, it's that our fingers are merely a vessel of truth.  Not the answer.)  So how do you cope with the wear and tear of your most important tool?  You have to preserve it in the moment.

I recently came to the realization that I have been out of college longer than I was in it.  When I entered college, it felt like the apex of life.  I moved far away from home.  I met new people.  And I had been programmed to believe that college would catapult me to the path I was sure to lead.

Throughout my college days, I began writing a screenplay entitled "The Twenty Year Old Virgin", a playoff of the Judd Apatow comedy with an emphasis on the pressures of losing your virginity at a young age.  As a woman who "became a woman" at 22, this idea meant everything to me.  I specifically remember "coming out" to my best friend that I was, in fact, a virgin on a bus ride home from a party one night because it felt like such a defining feature at 20.  And as a woman who has since sought validation in casual hook ups, the idea of finishing this screenplay seems odder and odder.

But memories are what dictate our future.  There's a reason we hang on to the people who fucked us over and the people who changed our lives.  It's because we need those memories to make ourselves better people in the present... and the future.

- I remember spying on my parents watching Alien when I was 5 years old because I happened to pick the moment when the alien bursts out of John Hurt's belly.  And I remember not sleeping very well that night.  But I have zero recollection of anything that happened before or after that moment.

- I remember choking on an ice cube I was sucking when I was a child, and the cantaloupe I threw up into our sink, but nothing before or after that moment.

- I remember my dad surprising me Saturday morning at our kitchen table because he travelled home through the night to see my stage debut in Little Women when I was 11, but I can't remember any lines from my show.

- I remember the smell of Quizno's subs seeping into my hair after shifts at my first job, but I don't remember how to make a single sub.

- I remember failing my first permit test - vividly the screen and the questions - but I don't remember how poorly I reacted to it.

- I remember vomiting on myself while giving blood during Calculus of my senior year of high school, but I don't remember how to find the derivative.

- I remember hopping on a boat with some strangers during the Taste of Chicago, guiding by an old man named Gordon who enlightened us on his Pagan ways, but I have no idea what the hell he was talking about.

I could go on, but you guys get my drift.  We have moments in our lives that carry significance, but at minimum, the best we can say about them is the moment.  Outside of that, we have to wing it based on experience.  I remember that my father who worked away from us for three years found his way home to see me perform in my first real show because he loved me.  And as a writer, I am forced to fill in the gaps that I don't positively remember.

The pain comes from realizing that there are some beautiful moments in your life that may pass.  And the only way to preserve them is via a photograph or the written word.

As we get older, days blur more into months.  Months into years.  And years into gaps of time that are harder to define.  A co-worker recently discussed a philosopher's idea of memory with me.  That when we are younger, time feels more marked because we have more to look forward to.  We have years in school that demarcate events.  I remember the Blood Drive Vomit Scandal of 2005 also happened in April, because I was a senior and it was the moment I realized my blood giving compatriot was who I wanted to ask to the upcoming prom.  But post college, the years blur together because we have less to associate with them.  The Pagan Boat Journey on Old Lake Mich happened, well, what?  I don't know.  Maybe 2010?  Maybe 2011?  Somewhere around there.

It's hard to believe college ended 5 years ago, because what has happened in my life since then?  A blur.  Whereas every moment of college carried weight.  Carried significance about the rest of my life.  But as we get older, we have to find our own significance.  Our own sense of worth.  It's no longer handed to us.  And hopefully with time, we can start to figure out how to manage our memories in a more efficient fashion.

But probably not.