Relative Something

A wonderful person I supervise at the day-job was addressing the roomful of us, describing an alarming incident that happened on his drive to work. The latch on the hood of his car released while driving full-speed on the interstate highway. He looked at me and made reference to the time my car had the same problem.

My blank stare gave me away.

“Don’t you remember?” he asked.

I didn’t want to completely deny his assertion of the occasion, so, admitted I wasn’t sure.  In actuality, I would have comfortably stated that I had never had that experience before in my entire life. Any hint of a memory about such a thing had long ago gone missing.

Minutes later, while visiting the restroom –after he had described how he had gone out to my car with me to look into it (because he and I have the same model car)– I found myself with time to think about it. I exhumed a faint recognition of our both being out at my car, in front of our building, with the hood open. That’s it. That is all I can muster. And, only with the help of his series of descriptions of the event.

I will admit that my immediate reaction, standing at the sink, was to think of how my mother’s memory fractured and faded before our eyes in her later years. Was this my first hint of a pending similar fate for me?

More significant to me was the realization of how wrong I was in my confidence that I had never had that experience before in my life.

In my years of self-analysis since being diagnosed for depression, receiving treatment in the form of talk therapy, and subsequently contemplating my acquired dysfunctional perspectives, I discovered far too many instances where I staunchly defended something in which I held an unreasonable confidence.

I expect that my past depression has robbed me of a lot of memories. At the time, I wasn’t in a healthy enough mindset to record experiences like a mind otherwise would. Historically, I felt that if I had no memory whatsoever about something, then it never could have happened to me. It wasn’t so much a logical deduction, it didn’t feel possible to me that I would have no memory of something.

I no longer possess that same confidence. At the same time, I still need to practice the art of being conscious of the fragility of my perspective of the here and now. It’s something that a few horses will be more than happy to assist me with, I’m sure. Everything fits together rather nicely, don’t you think?

I wonder if I will retain a memory of having had this specific experience and following insight. I’d say that having written about it should be a help, except I tend to forget most of the things I’ve written in the past, so that doesn’t provide much of a confidence boost.