Ahh, Memories

There are some times, some places, some situations that stick with us forever. Whether we realize it or not, some part of our subconscience is always aware of that memory, it just needs a certain trigger to pull it out from the archives in the recesses of our brain and flood our waking thoughts with flashbacks to a different time.

There are certain smells for me that will transport me back to an earlier time. Certain feelings. Certain songs.

Whenever the roof of my mouth feels funny, I think of velvet. It's not really a sensation that could ever logically be described with that word, but one day when I was little, staying at home sick, and sitting on my mom and dad's bed watching Sesame Street on their little television, the roof of my mouth felt funny like that. And if I held really still, it wouldn't go away. And to my child's mind, it would feel like velvet.

Maroon 5 always makes me think of 5th grade.

Water balloons always make me think of third grade, at a certain friend's house who I have never been at since.

Corsets make me think of wolf costumes and hives. Green iPods are walking to elementary school during alternate transportation week when they handed out stickers to people actively trekking along. Sensitive skin is a warm bath when I have a fever.

Then there are the places. Some places that are associated with a particular but imperfect event, where you always think of one specific thing, but not a specific night or specific occurrence.

Some places should be like that, but they aren't.

Tonight, we went to Old Chicago after rehearsal. The only time I ever go there is after theatre. So, natural that I should relate it to theatre.

But out of the several times that I've been there, my mind thought of one night.

Driving home, I expected it to be snowing, and for somebody to be waiting to Skype with me when I got home.

Needless to say, there was no snow, and everybody was asleep.

You crafty memories.

16 Going on 80

I think I have premature Alzheimer's.

Seriously. I can never remember anything.

I've taken to writing lists, not because I like lists, but because otherwise I forget all but three of the things that were supposed to be on the list.

And then I try and make a mental list, so I can store all of the things that need to be on that list in my mind until I get home and can furiously scribble them down before they all go on vacay, but it doesn't work.

I end up remembering two, forgetting one, remembering two more, forgetting another one...

Needless to say, my lists don't generally grow very quickly.

I've been using a journal that my wonderful mother gave me for Christmas as a journal / extra memory bank. I literally write down every sort of list that I can think of, such as movies that I need to get, blog entries that I should do sometime in the future, books to read, and -- wait, I forgot the other ones. See what I mean?

As much as I want to carry it around with me so that I can write down all of my trains of thoughts before they depart for distant destinations, but I feel that doing so would broadcast my forgetfulness in a way that would not exactly be beneficial to me.

So instead, I will allow my memory to age three times as fast as my body until I can't even remember my own name by the age of thirty.

The funny thing is, I'm still great at memorizing things. And doesn't memory have to do with memorizing? I always thought so, since, you know, the first five letters are the same and all.

I can remember all of the lines from all of the shows that I'm in at one time, and if you so much as say the word "clam-bake" I will break out into Carousel. Pay no mind to the fact that it's been six years since I did that show.

But alas, I would rather not try to figure out why I'm such a forgetful little monster, I will just go on making lists until the end of my happily forgetful days.

Or at least until I forget where I put my notebook.