Memento

Let's see if I finish this.

The movie "Memento" sometimes feels far too close to home. If you haven't seen it, the protagonist has amnesia; he has notes tattooed all over his body as reminders of things he's learned, then forgotten and relearned, and finally had to have written onto his skin to keep in his head.

There are times when this feels like a frighteningly accurate description of how my head works. I have blind spots: things I know the answer to, but I forget until someone points them out to me...whereupon I shake my head, remind myself to remember them, and promptly forget them. They're facts that, remembered in time, let me pull out of some steep dive into anger and frustration. More often, they're things someone has to repeat to me, like being told "You've had a stroke" as you stare up into the sunlight wondering how you got down the sidewalk like this. And they're not new, at this point in my young life.

It is a fine thing to be old enough to recognize your own shortcomings. (Let's leave aside the question of whether that's wisdom or just settling.) It is disheartening to realize you've been through all this before, that the revelation came already and went, and there is every reason to believe the footsteps you are following, arcing ever so slightly to the side as they approach the horizon, are your own.