Sunday, February 19, 2006

How do people forget?

No, seriously- I can't seem to get the hang of it.
I mean, I can forget a phone number, where I set my keys and other petty shit.
But so much of the rest of my life is as real and immediate now as it was when it was happening.

I can remember my grandmother's death- the bewilderment, the struggle to fully wrap myself around the concept. I remember discussing it with my my mom. I was 5 years old.

My grandfather died when I was, um.. ten. I vividly remember crying in my dad's lap, along with the rest of my family. I remember the arrangements for the funeral, the trip back to Illinois, all of it.
It's not a matter of forgiving myself and letting things go- I've got the good memories and everything in between, too.

I remember every race I ever ran, and I can summon the adrenaline from those memories in a heartbeat. The thrill of every prank, every high school-petty-criminal caper. Every insane motorcycle race, every hunting trip, every tranquil day spent ranging the wilderness by myself.

I can't claim that every one of those memories is 100% accurate. There may be.. heh.. degradation of some of the data. But the emotional impact is unimpeded by time. Time has healed few, if any, wounds for me.

Then, a bit under ten years ago, things get really wierd. This is my personal line of demarcation for going crazy. Starting in that border area, disconnects start appearing in my memories.

I remember the factual details of courting my wife with vivid clarity. What I can't remember is how I felt at the time. I know I love her. I just can't remember how I got in that state.

And so goes my life since about '97 or '98. Vast tracts of data, with brief spurts of emotion- of passion- interjected here and there. Ha- the emotion's probably in there, too,- wildly ricocheting off of neurons, going off like forgotten landmines in a schoolyard.

Maybe that's my crazy- unpaired emotion popping out of nowhere like an idle thought or memory. Ghost emotion without context.

2 comments:

YamFu said...

This is a very cerebral observation. It is something that interests me greatly. I really want to comment on this but I think this is better left for a conversation over a drink or 4. Perhaps we can get together soon?

Your Friend

Antipaladin said...

Yeah- tequila never hurts my cogitatin'.

P'raps we oughta infest the Davis' patio very soon.