THE DEEP END
There’s something that’s really been bothering me lately. I think about it in the shower, while I’m driving or making dinner, or even while I’m working. It weighs on my conscious and nags at my soul.
I can’t remember second grade.
This may not sound like a big deal to most people over the age of 35, but to me, it is. I’ve always been able to remember at least a tidbit, a snapshot, from every single grade, going all the way back to preschool. At my Montessori school I can recall learning Spanish and the police man who came in to tell us how dangerous escalators are, horrifying us with a story about a little girl who got her shoe stuck in one (I still think about this story every time my 5-year-old daughter attempts to get on an escalator by herself, practically sending me into a frenzy). In first grade, I remember my intense competition with another student, Laura, to read the most books (she won, but she also peed in her pants in front of the whole class so I felt redeemed), and of course I could never forget when Bo kissed me on the cheek during field day. When I think about third grade, the first memory that comes to mind is the day when President Reagan was shot, when all the students gathered around a TV in our classroom, mesmerized, to learn details of the assassination attempt.
But over the course of the last year or two, when I try to bring up memories of second grade, I get nothing. It’s like a book with a chapter torn out. I search endlessly for it, racking my brain, flipping through my mental filing system for any hint of that year, but I only draw up blanks.
Where did my memory of second grade go, and why is it missing?
My fear is that the answer is simple: I am almost 40. With six months to go until the big birthday, I am worried that my mental abilities are not quite as sharp as they used to be.
There have been other instances of memory loss of late. Nothing major like leaving the baby at the grocery store or forgetting to turn off the stove burners. The moments are more subtle — being able to recall a conversation but not the person I was talking to, having no recollection of saying hi to my aunt at Thanksgiving dinner when she swears I just gave her a hug, my husband getting mad at me because I told him that I didn’t remember him instructing me to keep the fire going (OK, so maybe that one was a result of selective hearing).
I could chalk it all up to distraction, or having three kids, but really, I think the brain starts to get full after a while and there just isn’t room for all that stuff. The mind is like a computer, but when the hard drive runs out of space, there’s no external hard drive to download all that information. And by age 40, there is a lot of information swirling around in your brain. So something’s gotta give to make room for the really important things, like remembering to pick up your son early from school for his doctor’s appointment, or showing up to an interview at the right time, or renewing your passport before you arrive at the airport.
It makes me sad, though, to think that certain memories are gone forever. Because if we aren’t a summation of our past, than who are we? Isn’t that what makes me who I am, my memories of growing up and the places I’ve lived, my success and failures, likes and dislikes, moments of sorrow and pain, and times of immense beauty and joy?
It seems to me that memory loss is a distressing but inevitable part of growing old. I hope that mine remains minimal. If second grade has to disappear from my mental vault in order to make way for new memories, so be it. But that won’t stop me from trying to remember when I was 7 years old, to fill that hole in the novel of my life. That is, until I forget to remember at all.
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