Memories

I want to record a fond memory I have.

I went to high school in a small, private Christian school where chapel twice a week (and Bible class the remaining days) was a part of the curriculum. Being the keen sort of Christian young man I was, I both used words like "keen" to friendly derision and complained about chapel because of quality of the doctrine that was preached. Most days, I walked out angry at the appalling lack of biblical knowledge of the day's speaker.

I don't remember the speaker's name or even what they looked like, but one day, a speaker gave a pretty moving sermon about helping those around you. A focal point was young man named something like "Jerry" that mostly acted like he was fine but felt severely depressed and alienated and ended up committing suicide (if I'm remembering the story correctly - it's been 10 years). That day, I left the room in deep thought, wondering who was really hurting among my friends and fellow students.

I hardly noticed that Garrett, a friend of mine was moving towards me. Garrett was a good-ol' boy - thick accent, always goofing around, no guile, all heart. He came up, put his hands on my shoulders, and looked me dead the eyes. His face was dead serious, but I could feel the emotion pouring off him.

"Don't be a Jerry," he said, and left.

I busted out laughing.

In the moment, I was so concerned that I needed to be looking out for the people around me. The idea that I was the one someone immediately thought of was so ludicrous - combined with Garrett's complete reversal of his usual goofy demeanor - set me giggling uncontrollably.

Looking back with a little more perspective, I was actually emotionally unstable and contemplating suicide at the time, so Garrett was right, but I also probably needed the laugh.

I have enormous amount I want to say about related topics, so I'll say a good chunk of it now with little to no organization. You have been warned.

I have a terrible memory.

Well, that's not entirely true. I can remember thousands of obscure scraps of data about Pathfinder and Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 - as well as the Bible, despite not having studied it seriously in 5ish years. Just tonight, I was cold, and I remembered that days ago I accidentally knocked a t-shirt (the one with the Venn diagram of "never" and "more" with a raven in the middle) off a coat hanger in my closet, and it landed on a suitcase being stored there. I remembered where it fell well enough to find it in total darkness at 4 a.m.

But in many other aspects, I have a terrible memory. I cannot remember state capitols. I cannot remember my parents' exact birthdays (though I know the month and plan accordingly). I cannot remember whether I should have spelled it "capitols" or "capitals." Most importantly, I have a very hard time remembering my own life.

For a specific example, take 3rd grade: I don't remember any of it. At this point, I can't even remember my teacher's name, though I couldn't recognize her by junior high. I once told this to some of my classmates, laughing "Yeah, I don't remember anything about third grade except that it was the year that Justin was here." They gave me odd stares and informed me that Justin was at our school in fourth grade.

Most of it is normal stuff. I have a hard time separating the decade of 2000-2009 from 2010+, but this seems to be a widespread cultural phenomena. I remember "The Berenstain Bears" being spelled "Berenstein," but remember it being pronounced stain; my friends have humorously informed me that this means that I am the nexus of a trans-dimensional rift in space-time, and they will use me to get back to their proper timeline.

But I digress: The point is that I often forget large swaths of my own life. My brain takes data that it deems unimportant like my old friends, favorite media, most intense feelings, and allocates it as writable space. Unlike a computer, I don't even have defragment function, so the memories I do have are scattered and hard to access without specific triggers.

This is one of the primary reasons I've been trying to blog more, and blog about some personal topics and deep memories. I don't just want to display them for others, I want to record them for myself in 10 years, 10 months, or 10 days who has completely forgotten what he believed, thought, and felt at that time.

I was looking back at my old Livejournals (always a perilous idea), and I was struck by a number of conclusions:

-I was even more deeply depressed than I realized (see Garrett story above; though part of that perception was just that I rarely felt like posting except when I was feeling emotional).
-I was much more religious than I remembered, and for longer.
-I had a seismic shift in mood when I met the lady who is now my wife, and another when I came to terms with my own atheism - but I also used Livejournal less and less thereafter.
-I wrote much more then than I give myself credit for now.
-I don't remember it that well.
-I don't have any reliable way of remembering what I didn't write about.

So the obvious conclusion was to write more.

My wife (who has been reading this over my shoulder) contends that it's not a problem of memory but perception - and my complete unawareness of my own surroundings is definitely part of it.

I didn't even get to the bizarre quasi-religious experience I had last night, but it'll have to wait for another time.