Memories. Where the hell did they all go? Most people remember the momentous events of their life, but mine are gone. I was talking to my friend Julie earlier. She was my girlfriend back in the \u201880s. We were even engaged for a little while. I was telling her that I can\u2019t remember proposing to her, and that I can\u2019t remember how or why we broke up. She remembers. She even apologized to me for being a bitch. I\u2019m glad I don\u2019t remember then I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t remember my wedding to Michelle. I don\u2019t remember the weddings of my children. I don\u2019t remember their births. What the fuck do I remember? I do just fine at trivia night. I can remember facts. I just can\u2019t remember the events of my own life. I do remember the day Michelle died. That one\u2019s seared in there pretty good. But I don\u2019t remember Dad\u2019s death. I remember the date because it was Valentine\u2019s Day. I know I was in the hospital room when he died, but I don\u2019t remember what hospital it was. I don\u2019t remember who else was in the room. I don\u2019t remember the moment he stopped breathing.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve got temporal lobe epilepsy. I\u2019ve had it since January 2016 when I had my first grand mal seizure, which I also do not remember. I suppose that\u2019s the reason that so many of the events of my life are inaccessible. I wonder if they are still there in my brain somewhere like a file on a hard drive where the catalog entry has been removed but the data itself hasn\u2019t been overwritten. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I smoked a lot of pot over the last few years. I know it affects short-term memory even though it\u2019s also supposed to help epileptics. So, I decided to give up pot for good a few months ago in the vain hope that my brain would start working better. My life has started working better, and I\u2019m saving a lot of money, but the brain\u2026 still borked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I took a lot of really cool vacations with Tracy when we were together. We went to some great concerts. I know this because I\u2019ve got tons of pictures in Google Photos as proof. For awhile, I told myself that I\u2019d gotten to see U2 in Dallas, but it turns out that I had stayed at the hotel while Tracy and Eliza went to the show because we only had the two tickets. I was just along for the ride. I found that out by reading an old journal entry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We went to Costa Rica one spring, Riviera Maya near Cancun in Mexico another spring, Orlando in yet another spring. I don\u2019t remember a thing about any of these vacations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I do remember standing out in the front yard at the old house and staring at the constellation Orion in the winter. I remember taking our old English Setter Ollie out for walks in the woods. But I don\u2019t remember taking him to the vet to be put down when he got old. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve got posters on my office wall for Casablanca, Gone With The Wind, and It\u2019s a Beautiful Life, because they used to be my favorite movies of all time, but I don\u2019t remember the plots much. I finally just remembered George Bailey\u2019s name moments ago after trying to recall it last night as the poster caught my eye. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Am I even the same Trent Douthat that I used to be if I don\u2019t remember my own life? Who am I now? Same body, same name. Just minus the memories. Without the memories, am I even still friends with half of the people I know on Facebook? I don\u2019t remember most of the times that we spent together. Am I still allowed to call them my friends if I can barely remember them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I want my god-damned memories back. Fuck you, epilepsy! What did I do to deserve this?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Memories. Where the hell did they all go? Most people remember the momentous events of their life, but mine are gone. I was talking to my friend Julie earlier. She was my girlfriend back in the \u201880s. We were even engaged for a little while. I was telling her that I can\u2019t remember proposing to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trentdouthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trentdouthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trentdouthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trentdouthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trentdouthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/trentdouthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":302,"href":"http:\/\/trentdouthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions\/302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trentdouthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trentdouthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trentdouthat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}