bitterdiva

Imagine there's no memories

I often find that I am very disconnected to the outside world. Or rather that the outside world is disconnected from me. I live in a small city where the public transportation is a bit shoddy and you can’t really get from one place to another. I reside most of the time in a place filled with familiar people, coworkers, students, friends, and roommates.

I read magazines to brush up on my fashion sense, my sports knowledge, the latest music and movies, and how to make a killer pot roast with Guinness. There are some people in these magazines that cross over into other ones and by that I am supposed to know who they are and that they make millions a year. I try to get in touch with reality and know that these people are in fact real but something deep inside me tries to convince me otherwise.

I am bombarded with images of people. From the local meteorologist that tells me that tomorrow it’s going to snow to a supermodel soliciting a fragrance by some designer I’ve never seen. When the images are gone, I don’t remember who these people are. In fact, I have a hard time remember what anyone looks like that exists in my personal life. I know these people all have the typical facial features and hands, but I do not know what color their eyes are or what they were wearing this morning. I even have a hard time conjuring up an image of my parents in my mind’s eye. Maybe it’s like a form of Alzheimer’s or that one of my short-term memory circuits is fried. I lack the ability to create exact mental images of people.

I once dated this guy who I thought was very attractive when I didn’t see him. When I went to visit him I was rather surprised to realize the difference in his actual physical appearance and the appearance stored in my memory. I still try to remember what he looks like and when I stare at a picture of him I get angry with myself for getting it wrong. Most of the time I take small samples of their physical being and embellish them to create a perfect image in my mind and ingrain that to my memory. It becomes really disturbing when the person I believe I love turns out to be someone who I don’t even recognize.

I don’t even have memories of my childhood, my adolescence, and my early twenties. I think my memory problem is linked to the distorted image problem. I can however remember images if I dream them. Only the most surreal images in my dreams remain after I wake. I assume that eventually I’ll become a stranger to myself when I look in the mirror.

05:05 PM

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