I Thought I Could Remember Everything

What happens when I can't?

Photo by Content Pixie on Unsplash

In the back of my closet lives a box that houses a ton of pictures and journals, I have opened this box at least a hundred times over the years and every time I do, I find something new. I found the pictures I’d been thinking of and then I found things that were unexpected.

Pictures I’d forgotten, and journal entries. I don’t know what made me open this particular journal, but I giggled at first because in 2008 I thought I was going to write my memoir among the pages there, in pink and blue gel ink. A valiant effort on past me’s part. And also a reminder that I have been wanting to tell my story for a very long time.

After trying to decipher what 29 year old me was thinking about my story back then, I started randomly flipping through pages and happened to land on August 2008, weeks before my mom died. Weeks before I saw her. The first thing that caught my eye was a symmetrical list of the medications I had in my possession, written in pretty cursive with the mgs listed next to each. At the end of the list was a total of all the milligrams that equals peace.

I gasped at that because I did not recognize, could not recognize 2008 me. I began turning page after page and scanning the words there, the pain that lived there, the plan that lived there. And then the notes appeared, goodbye notes I’d written to friends telling them how much I loved them and how sorry I was that I couldn’t stay. A note to my son who was not yet two, a note to my daughter who had just turned nine. Apologies over and over again. The meticulous plan and what to do afterwards once someone found my journal.

I had planned to be in Las Vegas when I did it. I was coming here for my cousin’s wedding, and to see my mom, I was going to do it then. I didn’t take the journal on the trip. I went to my cousin’s wedding and saw my mom and drove home the next day. I wrote in my journal when I returned, I had been ashamed that I hadn’t gone through with it there, so I planned for how to do it at my then house. Another meticulous plan.

I didn’t have a date in mind. The last date in August that I wrote about was 8/28, the day before the phone call that turned my world upside down. And then a span of seven days went by before I wrote again.

I was holding my breath turning the pages, as though I was reading someone else’s story. My body thought that I’d discover that she (me) died. I did not, could not recognize myself. I have no memory of writing any of it. I have no memory of feeling any of it. I still don’t, even now as I write this, I keep waiting for it to arrive.

Instead, the next sentence I wrote was only that she died, my mother had died and I was lost. I didn’t know how to do life without her. She was gone. I had stayed, but she had left.

Sitting on my closet floor, sobbing so hard that I started shaking. I immediately closed the journal and put everything back in the box. I suddenly felt like I was intruding on someone else’s life.

And then the questions began..

Did she take my place? Did she die so that I would live? Did she take my memory? Or was I tuned into her? Was I writing her thoughts thinking they were mine? A preposterous notion isn’t it? I couldn’t have done that. But my brain wanted to trick me into thinking maybe.

I had lived and she had not. I do not remember wanting to go. I do not remember the planning. I blocked it all out. Much like I blocked out the time I was catatonic in childhood. It’s a mind fuck to know it’s my handwriting, it’s my hand that wrote it all out, but my mind refuses to acknowledge it. It’s almost a relief that I can’t recall. I’m protecting myself, maybe. Or the pain of losing my mother took over that space in my brain. Knowing the brain as well as I do, I’d say it’s that more than anything else.

The great irony in it is that my mom used to be so proud of my memory recall. She bragged about it to everyone, that I could remember everything with near perfect recall. A photographic memory. Yet this instance is lost. Only living in a boxed up journal. Yes, I can remember so much. And I remember everything. Or at least I used to.

Maybe some boxes house a past that doesn’t need remembering. Maybe some things are better left forgotten. This past Saturday I went searching for pictures of me and my mom. I found something else instead, a piece of myself that had gone missing. I forgive her for wanting to go, I am so glad she stayed, so that I could be here now.

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I know this piece is heavier than most, thank you for coming along with me. Thank you for being here friends.

For anyone in crises please know that help is available. Reach out if you need to. You are not alone.

988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline