Unbroken
Following is the original, un-fucked with version of this: I wrote something for you but I broke it. I’m sorry.
No childhood memories. I spent a few years systematically hacking away at what I thought were the bad memories, not realising - okay, not caring - that I was not only wiping the slate clean but wiping away any recall of said slate.
When I emerged from my self-imposed haze, few things were left. Those were kept alive through repetition and reinforcement. Pictures, oft-told stories. I let others choose my remembrance and bend it to their will, perhaps forge it in their own image. Did it really happen that way, I don’t know, but that is the way I recall the telling of it so that is the only possibility within my current reach.
I handpicked the finest recollections of early adolescence for myself, though. Years of raging angst pounded out in earnest on many a pretty face, pre-teen love affairs with nearly post-teen ex-convicts, brainless. Never a questioning glance at all those stumbling fumbles and foibles of a truly well-spent youth. And firsts: first drink, first smoke, first trip, first toke, first cut, first fuck (no not that one, the real one), first fall. Tiny merit badges of honour and courage and youth, for fuck’s sake, YOUTH! on my well-worn lapel. What? What’s wrong with that? Those who escape relatively unscathed tell the stories on which future memories are forged.
I’m afraid, though. I’m afraid that none of that matters and I’ve forgotten a detail of actual importance, something vital to my overall well-being, my survival. Because once I’d stopped purposefully hacking, the hacking didn’t stop. It took on a life of its own and now I can barely bring back what I said yesterday to take back. I’m great with trivialities. Phone numbers I’ve dialed twice, song lyrics I’ve read while singing along. Beyond that, memory is just a wasteland of unfulfilled longing.
6 January 2008 at 5:17 pm
You’d be amazed how much of memory still surfaces years after you think it’s been wiped clean, disinfected, and dirtied again. It lies in wait for you.
6 January 2008 at 6:40 pm
I had a stage during which I was encouraged to dredge up the long forgotten memories. It was my way to salvation; but in the process false memories surfaced. I remembered them, but I knew better. This scared me. I would much rather not remember what happened then remember what didn’t. Now I just rely on others for recollection of the past.
6 January 2008 at 6:50 pm
the past is the only thing we can be sure of, I used to think, now I am not even sure of today… I wouldn’t worry about the hacking. Sounds like you had good reason for it.
6 January 2008 at 11:01 pm
My memories have become a scattered pathway. I sometimes can’t see the route back to last week, let alone the last two decades. Sometimes I think that this must be a better way to live, but other times I find myself kneeling on the broken flagstones, scraping away the moss and the dirt and the gravel to see if I can find any trace of my footprints that brought me here.
And in truth, I’m still not sure that I do.
A wonderful piece of writing, both in its broken and unbroken forms.
7 January 2008 at 12:32 am
I understand. I remember my first phone number. I don’t remember saying “I do”. I remember my kindergarten teacher’s name. I forget the name of the first boy who kissed me.
7 January 2008 at 10:01 am
Z: Sometimes I really want that to be the case. Other times I wonder…
Clarissa: That is really, really scary to me, too. I’m glad you knew better, somehow.
Peach: I’m never sure of anything. I wonder if that’s partly what makes memories all the more important.
AUW: It’s why I’ve always loved your name. We are all unreliable witnesses to our own stories. [And thank you. :)]
Bohémienne: Yes, exactly. Though even selectively, my recollection doesn’t seem to go as far back as some.
7 January 2008 at 3:01 pm
You know, postmodern theory would have it that we all construct our memories, anyway. That there is no *reality* which stands on its own without linguistic reconstruction, and that every time we try to narrate an event we merely get farther from rather than closer to the experience. It seems as though you are writing about an extreme and quite painful version of this, but in some ways it’s no different from the way many philosophers today think memory functions. As one of my favorite quotations runs, “I shall try to tell the truth, but the result will be fiction.” -Katherine Anne Porter. So, maybe we are all in a bit of the same predicament. If that helps.
In any case, a powerful essay, and one of my favorites that you’ve written. And that’s saying a lot, since I love them all. :)
8 January 2008 at 3:12 pm
I’m in favour of memory and truth. (More than I’m in favour of postmodern theory, anyway). I am pleased to read this now in ‘unbroken’ form. I hope that you can gradually move towards being at peace with your past, Ani. As always, you communicate your angst keenly.
9 January 2008 at 11:28 am
Marcelle: I do tend to think that the way we remember things is distorted by time, perceptions, etc. I just wish I had more material to draw from than it seems I do, regardless of how distorted. That’s sometimes. Other times, I’m glad for the way things are. I am fickle! Thank you, though, for your kind words.
Drodbar: Memory and truth are often at odds, though, aren’t they? Everyone is making me think! Thank you. :)