As I write out my memories of the formidable events of my past, I’m searching for explanations that can, perhaps, be revealed by reexamining things with a new perspective. I’m looking for answers that help explain where I find myself now. I’m hoping for revelations that cause things to make sense, finally. It feels like watching a movie as an adult that I had watched as a child, and realizing that I hadn’t really understood it the first time. Now that I’m watching it with my fully developed brain I can make the connections I couldn’t make before. I can understand not just the plot but also the motivations of the characters, and I can pull out the themes that I was oblivious to as a child. As I write, and reflect, memories come back more clearly. I can see images of scenes playing out. I can hear the words spoken to me by others. I can see the picture coming together and creating a narrative that I couldn’t see before.
But the more I think, the more I examine, the more I realize that my memories are not real. They have formed in my head over time, been shaped by my changing perspective continuously, and have been preserved in a way that suits my need for them at the moment of recall. I don’t trust them; I know they are malleable. Occasionally, a new memory suddenly presents itself, contradicting the episode I had written about a few weeks ago, providing me a sense of realization that what I thought I remembered couldn’t have really happened that way. I could never write a memoir and call it a memoir, because I couldn’t be sure it was recounting the past. I’d have to call it “autofiction”, or just say it’s a novel, even if I believe it to be the precise truth.
I wrote about my first experience with alcohol confidently, sure of my recollection of the facts: “I didn’t drink a single sip of alcohol until my 21st birthday”. But then, weeks later, more memories came. Memories of me, at home from college during a break, asking my mom to buy wine for me before I was old enough to buy it myself. And before that, memories of having wine with a friend during spring break in San Francisco my freshman year of college, when I was 19. We gave money to her roommate's boyfriend, who was older, and who worked as a security guard at the corner store. I remember my friend being annoyed that he didn't bring any change - he just handed over the bottle of wine and didn’t say anything about how much it cost or what he did with the rest of the $20 bill she had given him. I remember this so clearly now, with details of her apartment, the couch we sat on while watching TV, the way I tried to put my arm around her as we sipped the wine. And I’m sure that couldn’t have been the first time I drank, but I can’t remember when the first time really was. But, the story I wrote about in the blog describing what I thought was my first time drinking also feels so real. I like that story, so perhaps I want it to be the true version.
Faced with two conflicting memories, all I really know is that they can’t both be true. I couldn’t have had my first drink at age 21 and also at age 19. But, do I know which one is true? I am assuming the second one is true because it disproves the first, but is that right? Or might there be another version that will present itself at some point in the future? I am absolutely sure that I never had a drink until after I graduated from high school and left home. This memory feels certain to me because in high school I took on the identity of a straight edge person, listening to hardcore punk rock and drawing thick Xs on my hands with a Sharpie. Straight edge was a movement of big cities, before the internet could spread things quickly. The people I was hanging out with discovered it from reading ‘zines from New York and LA, and I got into it because I wanted a group to be a part of. I really tried to like the music. I pretended I liked the music. But I didn’t really understand it, and it certainly was not enjoyable to listen to. Bands like Snapcase, Gorilla Biscuits, Youth of Today, Mouthpiece, Chokehold. There was one band I did like, genuinely - Minor Threat. Their songs had melodies, or at least some semblance of melodies.
I wasn’t confident enough to say what I really felt about the music, to share that I didn’t understand it, or that I didn’t enjoy it. I thought that would make me uncool. So, I bought the records, went to the concerts, stood on the periphery of mosh pits, and pretended I wasn’t horribly uncomfortable. The funny thing is, I can’t remember how that straight edge period ended. I guess I went to college, started a series of identity crises, and decided the whole thing had been silly and pretentious. But I don’t remember wanting to drink, or having the opportunity to drink. My first semester of college was friendless and alone, peaceful and reflective. But here I go writing down my memories again, unsure of what really happened.
Not trusting my own memory makes me equally suspicious of the memories of others. I’ve read that autistic people have short term memory problems.1 I’ve also read that autistic people have excellent long term memories. Is that true? How do we know? Do we ask people how well they remember things and trust their answers? Is it just anecdotal? My own experience with memory is that however clearly a memory may play itself out in my mind, no matter how exact and detailed it seems, I have no idea if it really happened that way or not. Perhaps the people who say they have great long term memories simply think that they do, but they may not really. I can’t speak for anyone else of course, but my memories change to suit my current thinking and my current context. My memories are my alibis, and they will adjust their story to match mine without giving it a second thought. They are loyal in that sense, always backing me up, always supporting me.
I suppose what I’m looking for, as I interrogate the past, is a storyline that helps everything make sense. “Ahh, that explains it!” This is why the autism diagnosis was so satisfying - it provided an explanation for all the unexplainable things I observe in myself and in the way others react to me. But does anything really make sense if I’m consciously acknowledging that my memories are more like dreams than anything else? It only makes sense if I let myself believe that it makes sense, if I buy into the narrative that my memory creates.
Thinking about it, this is the essence of how the systems and institutions of our society work: things are not what they seem, but we collectively act like they are so, and that helps us cope with a reality that is far more challenging than we allow ourselves to contemplate (example: we collectively believe that if someone is convicted of a crime, they must have been guilty). I’ve certainly played my part in shaping the reality that others see, perhaps not always with full awareness or conscious choice. I’ve done this despite resenting when I discovered that it’s been done to me. Those moments when you realize that things were not as they seemed, the friendship dramas of high school, the political games of the corporate world, the revelations that a politician you voted for has been lying all along.
All of this is to say that as I examine my past, as I write, and remember, and write more, it helps me. I hope it helps others. It’s useful to recall and frame the past in light of the present, even though we can’t know what really happened. It’s helpful the way reading a novel is helpful, or the way watching a movie is helpful, or looking at a work of art. Seeing something, drawing a connection, feeling the pieces come together. It feels good. It brings a sense of peace. It allows me to reconcile unsettled thoughts and get more comfortable with the present moment. That thought leads me to a quote from Oliver Burkeman, reflecting on the nature of time (emphasis mine), “And none of this is actually what time is, right? We don’t have it — I don’t have five hours to get through my work at a given period, I just have this one moment, and anything could happen in the next one.” Anything could happen in the next moment, and anything could have happened in past moments. What actually happened, I suppose, is less important than its impact on the present.
For example, see this study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32191044