The Real Problem With Forgetting

Photo by Mohammad Metri on Unsplash

I don’t want to have to be the one who mourns everything when everyone else has clearly forgotten. It’s mortifying. It’s mortifying to be the one who remembers.

~ Ryan O’Connell

This is the opening quote from the phenomenal Medium piece by Blue titled: A Beginner’s Guide to Forgetting. This piece resonated with me because of my longstanding relationship with forgetfulness — with the most memorable example being the day I stumbled on a ‘friend’ with whom I had spent six whole years in elementary school and I couldn’t remember who, or where I’d met him before.

For a 30-something-year-old, one could say elementary school was miles away and perhaps it was reasonable to expect that sort of forgetfulness. It was when this ‘old friend’ reminded me that we had met twice after elementary school — once in our teenage years at the home of a girl we both liked; and the other, at the start of our respective careers.

It was embarrassing to hear him recall these events after I’d told him that I couldn’t remember when or where we’d ever met. Memories are strangers in my world. They never stay quite long enough to earn the right to stay. Even profoundly life-changing events — the kind you think you’ll never forget as long as you live. Once time begins to nibble at the edges of that memory, and the dust of succeeding events…