Memory-Less

May 14, 2007

I’ve been watching a few crime shows lately, and one thing never ceases to amaze me.

“Where were you in the afternoon of July tenth, 2004?”

“I was out doing grocery shopping, and here are the receipts to prove it.”

Shoot, I couldn’t tell you what I was doing on July tenth of last year. I couldn’t tell you what I was doing last week. I’m not very sure of what I was doing yesterday.

I set down something and it’s lost for a week. Or longer.

I recently forgot a load of my client’s laundry in the community laundry room. For…two weeks? I don’t even know how long it sat in the dryer.

I keep a journal. If I don’t write in it daily… Well, it’s futile to try to get caught up, unless I’ve left myself exhaustive notes on scratch paper, and, if I have time for that, I might as well just write the entry.

I don’t go around bemoaning how much better my memory used to be. My memory isn’t that shot that I don’t remember that I have always had a lousy memory. Oh, sure, I am good enough at memorizing stuff, but the minute I no longer need it at the forefront of my mind, it’s gone. I was an awesome test taker at school, but if you asked me any of those questions now, I highly doubt I could answer them.

But it’s not everything, you understand. It’s only the things my mind considers unimportant, like dates and people’s names and where I set that bill I intended to pay as soon as I washed dishes. I have a phenomenal memory for books and their authors, whether or not I’ve even read the books, and a good memory for songs and singers. I can keep a dozen fairly complex crochet patterns in my head even when I don’t use them for a year at a time. I can tell you the color of my very first journal notebook from seventh grade, and I know exactly where it is. I remember trivia I don’t remember ever learning. But can I remember where my car is parked? Um, that would be no. I have lost my car so seriously that I almost reported it stolen.

When you have a disability, you just have to learn to work around it. My keys go only in one of two places: the table or my jacket pocket. Specifically, the left jacket pocket. My bills go only in front of my computer where I can’t miss them—and that’s only those that I haven’t managed to set up for automatic payments. So how can I remember automatic payments? I write them all down after my first paycheck of the month. I can remember that much. Usually. And I park only in certain rows in a parking lot to at least minimize the search area.

Terry Goodkind wrote the Sword of Truth series. Jodi Picoult wrote My Sister’s Keeper, a book I have not read and don’t intend to. Don Williams had a hit with “Amanda” years before Waylon Jennings did. My first journal notebook was lime green. Now if I could only remember where I put… What was I looking for, now?

5/13/07