The Holes in my Brain                                                Winter 2001


I can no longer deny it: my memory sucks! I have known for a long time that my memory is full of holes, but you have no idea just how bad it is. 

The mind works in remarkable ways. My life is full of events and moments that I am better off forgetting. So I have. But of course, there's a catch: not only do I forget the painful episode, but every other thing happening in my life at that time. There are whole blocks of my life that I can't at all recall, not one detail! 

I can't remember (no pun intended!) the times I've been talking to one of my old friends or a relative, and they'll be recounting some funny thing that happened years ago.... and I have NO idea what they're talking about. Ten minutes and 500 hints later, I'll suddenly remember, from the depths of I-don't-know-where, what they're referring to. I would say that this happens with any event that occurred between the years I was 8 through 16. Gone. All gone. Happy times, hilarious episodes, warm memories... all are lost in oblivion.  

What's even worse, if I concentrate very hard and force myself to remember something, it will always be something bad that I finally remember, something particularly unpleasant. The details may have been easily forgotten, but the overall gist of the thing is not, so it seems. I will find myself being assaulted by all these images... names, faces and instances I had long ago pushed away. I am continuously surprising myself and sometimes feel that this is what it must be like to have amnesia, this constant sense of simultaneous loss and discovery.

But I can't lie: even though I am thankful for ability to easily forget, I would give anything to be able to remember at will, or to never have forgotten, the good times of my past. Even though I can think about specific days, or situations, and know what I feel about them, I can't remember WHY. And this sucks. I know, even though I hate to admit it, that the implications of this little problem of mine are huge.

But well, 2002 is the year for me to become more honest and more open to those things about myself that I normally run from. And they say the first step is to admit you have a problem....
Image copyright DC Comics 1979
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