Wednesday, October 25, 2006 | by nathan

Small. Ish.

When I was a kid, I used to forget things, like, all the time. At my elementary school in western Oklahoma they started imposing limits on how many times you could forget your lunch ticket before you just had to sit there and not eat specifically because I kept forgetting my lunch ticket. I would get home and completely blank on the fact that I had homework due, or a project. My parents would call and ask me to do some specific chore and before we were even off the phone, my mind had erased the information almost completely.

I have not entirely grown out of it, but I have learned that it helps me to write things down, that the tactile sense of putting pen to paper will make my brain file the information in a more often accessed spot, rather than with my memories of all my sixth grade teachers’ names and whether or not I liked them.

Now that I am a graduate student, I have to constantly write things down, because there is a lot to remember, especially with teaching AND taking classes, and working 25 hours a week at a whole other job at a whole ‘nother university. A LOT to remember.

I am at a point now where I know if someone told me something or not. I know because when I am reminded of something I forgot, a familiar sense of dread fills me and the memory of being told the thing flashes before my eyes. When I was not told a thing, no memory happens. Just a vague sense of dread, then the wonder: did I space out when I was being told? Then the certainty: no, I did not.

So when someone tells me he told me several times to do something, and why the hell didn’t I do it - well, after spending about four seconds feeling three inches tall, I just get mad and explain that, no, you didn’t. You never told me anything of the sort. Then I go about my day.

Because life is just too goddamn short, you know?