Memory

I started losing my memory, first "mild cognitive impairment" now "idiopathic dementia-like symptoms" which is really no diagnosis at all. 

I'm 32, I have no neurological disorder that we know of, and I've been tested for almost everything. Five years after I started noticing symptoms, I've found myself on a slippery slope where I'm losing my mind. I cried the first time I watched 'The Taking Of Deborah Morgan,' because I was losing myself, too... and there's nothing to fight against, the monster taking my memory doesn't even have a name. 

One day I forgot my boyfriend. Not like in the car like your wallet, I forgot he existed. Just for a few moments. See, most of the time once someone helps me out with a few details I can sometimes remember. So I started helping myself out with the details, writing notes to myself in the "adult" coloring book calendar on my desk, writing ideas for recipes in my lavender legal pad, doctor's instructions in the keychain of index cards in my purse, writing happy thoughts in my happy journal and sad thoughts in my sad journal, but eventually that stopped because I would forget which one was which. 

I would write letters to the man I live with when he was not home. Because there were things I wanted to tell him, and I could never be sure if I would remember. Sometimes, especially if I was writing while doing some other punding task like playing Tetris or watching the same series on Netflix over and over again, it would become just a stream of random thoughts that I wanted to share with him. Because I didn't have to see his face, I could write whatever I wanted and not be afraid of what his reaction will be. I needn't have worried, once he said he read my poem and I looked at him confused, he said it read like poetry, but my first thought was people would think I was ridiculous if I started writing poetry.

I have put that limitation on every part of my life. Afraid of reactions. Before I was disabled, while I was a pregnant teen in a rural high school I took creative writing. I wanted to be a writer. But I ended up just scratching enough to sometimes make ends meet, I survived, they say. I decided I wanted to live on purpose. I started writing on purpose, writing not to remember later but because I can still imagine, which is terrifying. I forget words all the time, the thesaurus and rhyming dictionaries are my friend because there's a word, just the right word, and I think it ends in -ite, but presque vu keeps me in the dark until I find just one little hint. Finding the right words is so hard sometimes.