Confessions of a Mental Hoarder...

  

    I had a dream the other night. Or more specifically,  a nightmare. In the nightmare I was an old woman. Not, I just got my AARP membership card in the mail, old. I mean OLD old, where your body and mind betray you in some very cruel and sometimes odd ways.  I was a very elderly woman riding around in a car full of younger adults. In the dream I recognize the neighborhood as a community that I grew up in as a teenage girl (or so I think) and I am trying to direct my younger ,and for some reason, GPS-less car mates to some of my old high school hang-out spots. Problem is, as I direct them... left turn at the light, right turn at the STOP sign… I start to get the way scrambled and sooner or later, we’re lost.  The moment I realize that those memories of the directions are gone for good and by proxy all remaining evidence of my youth, I become inconsolable. End of dream. Truth serum time: I spent the better part of the rest of my day fretting over the dream. What did it mean? Was I predicting my own future fight with Alzheimer’s? Was I reading too much into a silly dream and being my usual hyper-critical self? Not really. My fear of old age is not a fear of wrinkles, being out of touch or even a fear that I'll trip over my own sagging boobies and break my neck walking down the driveway for the Sunday edition of the New York Times. No, I have a sometimes all-encompassing fear of losing my memory with old age. Our memories are such an important part of what makes us who we are. Our experiences, good and bad, help to create our character and as we age we are allowed to carry these mementos along with us as constant reminders of how good we are at the game of life.  Based upon things like; how many times we laughed, the times we took a risk in life and ended up reaping great rewards (or conversely, taught a lesson as we fall flat on our fannies) and all the other circumstances and interactions with others that make life so rich, one could say that our memories are the prize at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box. Which is why it sucks so bad to think you could possibly be rewarded for a life well lived with a big ol bag of Nuttin' Honey.

I'm pretty sure I was on some boat with that guy from Inception but beyond that
I'm really drawing a blank, folks.

 


    In fact, losing my memory has been such a strong fear of mine for so long that I no longer leave it to my own brain to keep pertinent information in the vault. I know this sounds crazy but I often go to some pretty extreme measures to preserve favorable memories. For example, I recently had an experience at a restaurant where a certain ingredient in a dish from a neighboring table caused me to remember having that same meal as a preteen on a summer camping trip. Suddenly, information that I assumed had been locked away for over a decade came flooding back to me. I remembered the taste of the food, the smell and texture, the way the sun glistened off of my fork as I stabbed at my plate. I feared that the simple act of even allowing a fond memory to rise to the surface, after lying dormant for so long, was cause enough for the same thought to be lost for good. I ran to my one of many journals and wrote down as much information as I could about that thought.  I do this alot actually. I have composition books filled with stream of consciousness regaling of days at the beach, what my high school boyfriend's cologne smelled like, the first time I ever dyed my hair and countless other events and non-events all the same. They are taking up space in my apartment (space I could be using for shoes.) Things are getting out of hand. I used to do my best to preserve memories by forcing myself to relive the thought again and again in my daydreams until I felt that I had not only locked the thought in but created a new memory of myself remembering the event all over again--- a sort of double dip attempt to be sure it could never be lost. Now I feel like I'm forced to treat my life like The Cloud and it is becoming embarassing. I've never told those close to me in fear they simply would not understand.

Because those wackadoos on TLC's Hoarders: Buried Alive are swimming in trash friends.



  Of course there are other characteristics of mental hoarding that I possess (and keep cloistered in secrecy) such as saving old text messages to my laptop hard drive (which I believe stems from a fear I have of being mis-quoted and lied to) or downloading the lyrics to my favorite songs in fear I'll forget all about them. Yeah... I guess it's getting kind of bad. But in my defense I have taken some pretty severe steps to cleaning out the clutter. I recently went through my email accounts and got rid of all but a choice few emails. That may not seem like a big deal but trust me, this was a large fete for me. I usually sat back and allowed my inboxes to overflow with useless subject matter.

This has been sitting in my inbox since 2008. Sad face.

   Believe it or not, the reality programs about those unfortunate sad sacks who hoard old newspapers or ferrets have really helped me to self diagnose and heal myself. I've been able to come to the realization that the human brain is an amazing and powerful computer but it isn't built to remember everything, all of the time. It has been an uphill battle to let go of that obsessive compulsive nature and the control that I (incorrectly) thought I wielded over it. Things are getting better.  Hopefully (and if I am lucky enough to grow old and still have my health) I can accept as the decades pass that sometimes you need to let go of old memories and make room for the amazing new ones that are just over the horizon.


---  Vanity in Peril