Retrograde and Antegrade Amnesia: The Battles In My Brain

My memories are scattered. Sharp fragments. Bloody, jagged, lost pieces of time.

I am wandering the rocky streets in Bilbao, alone. I’m wearing the Teva, which I hate. I sit in front of the Guggenheim, crowded with tourists, and watch. They all seem to love their fucking tevas. They also love their daybags. They seem to think they're on the  Camino de Santiago. I realize I'm judging in a really annoying way. I'll write about it later.

I am wearing black laceup boots. With a skirt I picked up in Barcelona. It's lightweight, gauzy, and makes me feel like I fit in with the Spanish women. Step by step, I walk, little pebbles shifting beneath me. I scatter my shadow over the rocky streets as I go. Each step connects me to the disjointed fragments of memory from before.

Dirty, smoky air fills my lungs. I see scattered fragments. Fragments of things, pieces of people. Blood on sharp, hot metal. Even people seem cut and raw, like they are made of shrapnel. The world outside blurs with the world inside me. Both are filled with remnants.

I am my own world. Love, grief, memories. Words and war.

In Memoriam

At first, it’s a party. People come over. They bring food, flowers, and booze. They clean. They cook. How are you? They ask because they truthfully want to know. They bring books and ask you to go on walks. They plan the memorial. They stay by your side on that day of celebration. Like a birthday party, a memorial celebrates a life.

The memorial is the final phase of people gifting their time. Soon, they must return to their lives and reconnect with their own families. Friends begin visiting only on weekends. The phone rings less. Walks grow shorter, then rarer. Casseroles stop appearing, their careful wrappings missing in the kitchen. Flowers wilt. Leaves drip onto the table. Like snowflakes and people, flowers melt.

How are you doing? The soft voices ask these caring questions, but slowly their tone changes—speed, intonation, their topics shift. Soon, conversations turn to life again. The lives of the living. I notice the shift as I stand outside of their worlds, unchanged.

But I cannot, I do not, return to my life because my life isn’t there anymore. And never will be again. I don't think I'll ever rebuild.

Now. Who do I cook for? Who do I cook with? How do I comfort anyone? How do I live in a world without that person? At first, there is disbelief. Shock. The phone is just a cold thing now. No more silly messages. I start to feel more, and then less, as I get used to what is missing from my life every fucking day. The repetition changes me. Life outside keeps going.

Then things start to seem almost normal. The world keeps going. I notice. I cry less. I laugh. I listen to a podcast. I eat breakfast. This uneasy normal settles in. It never really fits with what is inside me.

Life goes on, and so do I.

Shock and disbelief are gone. I am not numb anymore. The fresh wounds are covered, but the pain inside stays. Under the surface, I still bleed. My mind is full of hazy, painful images.

Memories. Trees, babies, and so much beautiful food. Love. Hate. Sadness.

So many memories are fading and breaking down. Like old photographs from the last century. The images blend and dissolve together.

I know I will remember everything again. And again. But my memories will not be the same. They change, just a little, every time I remember.

My friends go out to dinner. They take day trips to the lake. They eat at home or at someone else’s place. They return to their worlds. My world is too fucking quiet. My brain is a smoky battlefield of memories.

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