Posted 2/3/2025
sometimes when im coming home from work and putting my key in the front door, i think about that episode of Monk where because of the grief of his wife's death, the titular Monk man accidentally breaks and enters into his previous house thinking, not finding anything wrong until he calls his therapist/counselor about not being able to find the popcorn maker and being found by the current residents of the house.
i sit here wondering if i even remember that scene right. i go and look it up. i watch the first minute and 20 seconds of the episode. he's looking for a cassarole dish, but finds a popcorn maker.
i wasn't correct but i was in a way right, there was a popcorn maker in the scene even if it wasn't the correct object he was looking for.
i have a conversation with my friends over a discord call about the safety of elevators. elevators are in fact, very fucking safe, because of the automatic elevator break that was invented by Elijah Otis. i did a project about it in 2nd grade and still remember the research and what it culminated in. i don't remember the years that the automatic elevator break was invented, nor the dates that Elijah Otis lived. i've always had a really hard time remembering numbers.
but the numbers aren't what my friends fixate on, they ask me how i still remember a project i did in 2nd grade and all its content. i don't tell them that i remember a project i did in 1st grade about the growth cycle of plants that included me drawing a full growth cycle diagram. i still remember what it looked like because of the chunky hands that are included in each drawing that included someone watering the plant.
i put my key in the lock of my house and think about how fragile memory is and if i'll continue to be able to remember each of these moments and more that are forever stuck in my brain. or if i'll revisit them unknowingly and cause some problems via dementia or other memory loss and not really know what im doing because i'm caught up in all of my old memories.
i think about the writings about how to care for people with dementia, thankfully no one in my family has suffered from it so im likely to not have to deal with it either, but how entertaining these people's memories and fantasies are often among the base level of care that can be provided to them because unless they are a harm to themselves or others, there's no reason not to indulge the old, confused memory.
i think about how good my memory is, i distinctly have memories from kindergarten, preschool, maybe when i was 4 or 5 years old. i don't have a memory before then, most people don't have memories before they are 5 years old (that is just common, there are people that can have very early memories). i think about how people say every time you remember something you are remembering the last time you remember something and therefore it can become distorted.
i pride myself on my strong memory, i was very good at history and art history classes because i can remember cause and effect situations very easily. i would always get marks off on the dates of events and the like. i don't really remember numbers all that well.
my dad came up with a memorization device to help me study for a social studies class test in 4th grade, where in order to remember that Ferdinand Magelen helped prove that the world was round, was to imagine a man in a fur coat that went "round" his neck, holding up a sphere. they say that visualization is some of the best tools in memorization and memory. i don't know if even he remembers this study session anymore, he's over 60 years old at this point.
i think about how i know people that don't have as good of a memory as mine and oft rely on me to be able to keep track of random details that they tell me to remember. they tell me to remember them so i do.
i have a habit of writing a lot of stuff down, something i gained from my mom, who has a notoriously bad memory hence all the notes that litter my parent's house. however when i write things down they reinforce all the text and information that i had written down before. the text is a reference document but its like i have the auto-generated summarization in my head and it takes looking at the text/notes to know it fully again.
my memory is fallable, i didn't always get 100% on tests because my memory isn't photographic. i remember the cause and effect, remember? if tests were based on multiple branching decision trees of information i'd probably get 100%s all the time. i was really bad at math in high school. no amount of memorization or memory helped me. i'm bad with numbers.
i think about how i put my key in the door at least 3 times a week, the days that i come home from work in the office but i am working from home the rest of the days or i'm doing errands or other things on other days. how this moment of me putting the key in the door is so mundane and not worth remembering, even though i can think back to the last few times that i put my key in this door: carrying a mass of groceries, struggling to hold both the plastic bag and the soda cups from coming home with dave's hot chicken for me and my roommates, coming home with two books and a puzzle in my hands from a second hand book store. these aren't that important but i remember them right now.
why can i remember certain things and not other things, but why can i remember so many things still on top of so much stuff when other people who experienced the same situations that i did can't?
i like having all the memories i can, and i would loathe to lose them. my life, however mundane, is still rich with information and stimulus that i enjoy experiencing. i don't want to forget it the longer my life goes on.