Intractable Memories It's strange to be calling my father and wishing him a happy birthday, what with how he really should be dead right now and all. Thanks to a kind and just God there is no possibility of forgetting what happened, but sometimes it seems a ridiculously long time ago that I was listening to the message on my answering machine from my sister letting me know that my father's heart had just exploded. Which is, again, strange, because everything that happened after that seems persistently as though it happened just last week. The raging case of insanity. The out of control struggle to get money situations in order. Being in every sense of the word, completely and utterly alone in dealing with all of it. That wasn't years ago was it? But it was, and those memories aren't going anywhere (unless that helmet thing I'm building using ten yards of tin foil, six thermometers, and a hamster works. My hopes aren't high). The funny thing about memories though is that they seem quite inextricable from other (seemingly random) memories. The strange chain of notions and ideas that jump from one to the other can be disconcerting at times. Why is my valuable brain real estate being wasted on remembering going to see "Return of the Jedi" on my birthday or that one, particular drive home? Because, to be blunt, these things are starting to get on my nerves. I think my regular, average Joe problems are enough to keep me quite busy. But no. I have to get all introspective, and whiney, and eight years old, and I'm going to hold my breath unless I get my way. See if I don't.
|