Memory Banks

I've been working on a couple of non-blog writing projects lately—collecting and digitizing old teenage angst poetry and journals, working on some academic articles, outlining a salacious romance novel so that I can finally retire at the ocean (kidding! or am I?), sending birthday cards, balancing the checkbook, etc.—so I haven't been spending much time scouring the internet for snark to snark about while being a snarkity snarkmaster. Looking through my old journals and writings has gotten me thinking about what it is that my brain actually catalogs...

Because of my OCD, it seems as if most of what I remember from a moment is what I was worried about, obsessing about, upset about, you name anything other than what actually happened at the event or specific details, that's what's in my brain. That, along with useless celebrity gossip and decades-old CBS soap opera plotlines. I'm consistently unable to remember a really funny event that happened with my best friends, but can recall the Wednesday 2 months ago that I was unable to get anything productive done because I was replaying a conversation from years before over and over and over again.* I can remember all the times I was upset in elementary school, but very little about childhood fun and games (whatever the hell that means). No matter how I try, I can't recall half of the stuff that happened in high school, except whatever insecurities were bouncing around and around in my head. This used to upset me: here was ONE MORE THING that I couldn't do right, so much of my life stolen from me because of a stupid wonky brain.

But...thinking about how I remember all of my incessant thinking, got me (you guessed it) thinking. In truth, there's no "right" way for memories to be kept or, even, one way events are supposed to be remembered. My memories are a reflection of my worldview, whether I like what gets captured or not. I'm seriously considering seeing if I can't scrap together some sort of timeline out of all my anxieties, see what I can piece together in spite of this thing that, for whatever reason, is a part of how I view, deal with, and remember my life. 'Cause knowing what it was that was bothering me (OCD or "real") at a certain time in my life, OCD is certainly better than worrying about how I can't remember... I mean, 'cause really, do I need any more worry floating around up here in my noggin'? I think not.

*My OCD doesn't manifest in the stereotypical "germaphobe" way... I tend to have issues with perfection, fear of harming or hurting others, and fear of misremembering something important, misrepresenting myself, or misleading others in some way. I tend to make a lot of lists, rearrange items, and replay conversations and situations over and over and over again.