Mezdulene on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/mezdulene
This condition can be heartbreaking and also a blessing. In the long run, it is troublesome. Does it mean that I have done terrible things that I cannot remember? Yes. Did I do those things with the internal knowledge that I would absolve myself through a lack of remembrance? Maybe, but clueless is closer to the truth for most of my life.
Does it mean that terrible things were done to me that I cannot recall? Yes. Crawling through the thing that is reputed to be memory seems to be a lost cause.
They say that memory is unreliable, so why fret about having none?
Is it a saving grace that I don’t remember tossing Arlo’s wedding bands into the woods? His wife didn’t think so. It took them 20 years to tell me this and I don’t remember it. They disavowed me for those 20 years. I could not understand why they hated me so much. I could not understand why I deserved such violent rejection from my beloved child and his family.
One year before he died, Arlo finally told me, my story. He was reluctant to say.
“Are you sure you want to hear this, Mom?” His shoes were shaking as he spoke. I was not afraid. I am rather blunt and fearless, in public.
He spoke of how Robert and I had visited them after they relocated to Oregon from Arizona. I vaguely remember my true love, Robert, being there with me, but the only thing I can gather from that time is the idea of a house surrounded with green as far as the eye could see. And blue sky. Summer in rain country. In my vision it looks like this for a second, then it disappears.
“We left you and Robert alone in the house. It took a while but we could not find our gold wedding bands. Then we discovered you had thrown them into the yard somewhere. We never found them.”
I was dumbstruck. “Why did I do that?” I apologized. I was contrite. I cannot do otherwise, because my One True Thing is that I do not remember my own life, much less yours. My honesty requires that I be contrite because I know myself well enough to know that spontaneous actions happen when I fearlessly attempt life. Having no rudder or sail requires strong swimming skills. Life without memory is a workout.
Deer in the headlights is now Deer Walking on the bottom of the ocean where light does not penetrate.
I never thought to ask, “If you never found them, then how do you know they were thrown out there? Did I confess at the time? Please tell me because I do not know.” They were sure I was a liar.
I am not a liar. My mother used to say to me, “Well that’s a good story, but Geminis are liars!” It was a fun family joke. My mother remembered her childhood experiences from the the food she ate. Taurus rising, Moon in Scorpio, Virgo Sun. She was all body.
I cannot imagine what others see. I cannot imagine what I see. I am a blind artist, feeling my way through the sounds that show me the way. I make things.
How do others see? Maybe we should ask others what they see rather than assume we are all looking in the same way. How do you See?
SDAM - Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory