memory

I heard this thing the other day that whenever you remember a memory, you’re not only remembering the contents of the memory itself, but also each previous time that memory takes a visit to the forefront of your mind. I just can’t stop thinking about this.

Does this mean that our memories are only a pure memory the first time we remember it? Because each subsequent remembering would mean that we have an added nuance to the original memory, a new spin on the story that is being shaped by the remembering itself, right?

I don’t think I’ve ever used my memory as much as I have in these past few months, during all these unprecedented times. Before 2020, memory was a place in my brain consisting of nothing but vegan replacements for eggs in pancakes and Rebecca Black lyrics from 2011. Well, I mean, it consisted of a littlemore than that (duh), but the occasional visits to this place in my mind were mainly for reasons of practicality or amusement.

But things are a changing. I’m leaving the house less now; sometimes I’m barely leaving my bedroom. There’s a high chance that at any given time in the day I’ll be in bed, scrolling the UberEats website, selecting where to binge my government help scheme under the guise of supporting local business. When my laptop runs out of canned laughter and sitcom theme songs to keep me on the right side of sane, I let its mirror turn black and instead turn inside to the other screen. These days, my memory isn’t just that, isn’t just a place to file away the highest and the lowest occasions of my past selves. My memory is the ticket out of my bedroom, the door that leads me out of these four walls that have been recycling the same oxygen for days. I can always breathe better when I’m anywhere that this body isn’t.

Human interaction lately has been sparse. I live at home with my parents, so I’m lucky I don’t have to pay rent, but every conversation I want to have with someone in this house seems to result in yelling or in silence. It’s best just to skip straight to the silence. I lay in bed and think about the last time I spoke to someone that wasn’t a blood relation. I then stop trying to think about this because it makes me sad how far back I have to think. Sometimes I see people looking at me on the street, in the rare moments of making use of my allotted one-hour-a-day of outside time. But there’s no people. I turn to see only a post-box, or a lamp post, or just the flappy part of my face mask that keeps popping into my peripheral. Maybe my brain is compensating for the lack of human contact I’ve been subject to. Maybe I’m going insane.

My memory has been playing tricks on me lately. So much so that it would probably pose an inconvenience if I was actually participating in normal life, talking to people and socialising and what not. But I’m not, so I let it clown around. I let it convince me that I’ve said this or thought that. Sometimes I don’t even bother to work out if these are memories from life or memories from dreams. Memories from dreams are pretty meta, when you think about it. You’re remembering something that your brain has thought happened, because it did happen, but it happened only in your brain. Maybe it’s not that meta. I don’t know.

I’ve become weirdly cautious of remembering things too many times. If for every time I remember something, I am adding a new layer of remembering, how many times can I remember something before it is no longer a true memory? I kind of freak out a bit when I think like this. How many memories aren’t true? I mean, my brain might have quite possibly twisted some of my most sacred memories into shapes that are nothing like their original, and I would be none the wiser. Moments that I hold close to my heart may as well just be fabricated fairy tales implanted into my skull, fictional stories that are only just the result of chemicals and hormones and an idle mind making use of the replay button.

Have I even seen snow? Or swam in the ocean? My body knows what it is to feel sand between my toes and salt scratching my scalp, but does it really?

But does it matter, I guess? If I have thought something to be true, what’s to say I can’t just let my brain believe it. Ignorance is bliss, and knowledge is power, but what if the two are intertwined just so, and now they both feel the same? Maybe I could find a power in ignorance? Or at least find a sanity.

My memories seem to serve no purpose these days, save for entertainment. Birthday dates and travel plans have fallen into the oblivion of the mind, where I suppose they’ll stay put for a little while longer. I’ve substituted shopping to-do lists and when my next shift starts, replaced these with that time in primary school that I convinced my best friend I was adopted, and that time when I got an orange pip stuck up my nose. I’ve parroted these memories to friends and family over the years in search for comedic validation of my childhood antics, but for all they know I could have been making them up. For all I know, I suppose, I could have been making them up. Still, I leave them on replay in my mind, blissful with the ignorance of not wanting to know.