Once again, before actually trying to confront my feelings and the problems with them let’s look at what I feel to be one of the main contributing factors to who I am and why I experience life the way I do.
Memory.
Anticlimactic, isn’t it. Well yes, the issue at hand is how much I remember.
I have something called ‘exceptional emotional memory’. What this means is I remember a lot more than most people, especially things related to ‘moments’. Not necessarily trivia, or facts and figures (although I do remember far more of any / all of that than can be considered sane), but things that have happened, that I’ve experienced.
This is complicated by a particular facet of my psyche; I seem to be very easily ‘triggered’. Seeing something, driving past a place, hearing a song or a quote or a phrase, a similar experience… all of these can cause something like a flashback. These flashbacks are very ‘rich’. Detail filled, authentic, almost immersive.
The thing is, when you were with someone for a long time, those memories and experiences build up. At some point I might try to do a post with a (what is sure to be non-exhaustive) list but for now I’ll just list a few that have caught me unawares in the last week. Again, non-exhaustive but a nice cross section from the inescapable to the divinely comedic.
The moon.
Any drink with tequila in it.
Black labs.
Any one of thirty or forty roads / streets.
Any one of nine different cities or towns.
Literally > 150 songs
Twelve or fourteen TV shows in particular
Restaurants, pubs, bars.
A million other things
A 20lb bag of rock salt.
A puddle on a walkway. Yes, you read that right.
There’s a reasonably popular meme, something along the lines of ‘everything reminds me of her’, and it’s right and true however the other end of that particular emotional journey is ‘time’s a great healer’. Unfortunately that second statement finds it’s truth in, is predicated on the idea that with time memories fade or get replaced. So what do you do when that doesn’t happen for you? When memories sit with you forever?
Memory is supposed to be ephemeral, why can’t mine be?
