I have a very good memory. That is not to say that it is photographic. Far from it. I just have a very strong ability to recall things in my past. This is especially strong for movie quotes, videogames, things I have read, and music. It is even more potent for conversations.
This ability comes in handy quite often. However, there are certain times where this ability really is not all that it is cracked up to be. When my brain takes me back to certain conversations, I tend to feel the emotions of the situation over again. It’s probably not as strong as it was at the time, but damn if it doesn’t feel shitty. I wish I could forget a lot of these memories. The bad ones stick with me the worst. Some of the good ones stick with me too. There get to be some weird ones splashed in there too.
I remember leaning on a car in my high school parking lot, talking to my ex (before we were dating, this is while we still did the fuck buddies thing). She was confessing to me that she had sex with another guy, and wanted to keep doing it, but also wanted to keep what we had. I told her that I wasn’t mad, and that I had no reason to be. She had fulfilled my one request for the whole situation: be honest. I asked that of her when we had started. In truth, I wasn’t mad. The part of it that makes me think is that I really wasn’t upset or angry at all. I drove home afterwards wondering the whole time why I didn’t really care.
I dated her for a long time during my first years of college. It’s funny when I look back and think about trying to build a loving relationship and a foundation of trust on a situation that started off so incredibly screwy.
I remember getting drunk with a coworker two years ago. He was convincing me to transfer to a different section of the IT department at my college. I was relaying all the things that I was unhappy with, with some embellishments. I was pretty drunk. When I was done, he explained to me how things had become worse since he had started working at IT, but his apathy had kept him from quitting. He relayed exactly how things would go if I stayed. I watched another of my coworkers lose his drive and cease caring about the job. I didn’t. I went to another job where my work was more valued. The coworker I was having the discussion with spent two hours convincing me that I needed to transfer or I would burn out. So I did.
Today, I was present for another conversation. One of the managers was lamenting how the management should have done more to keep another person from doing exactly what I did: transfer to the networking section. I laughed today when he was done, and told him that I’m glad nothing changes around the department. It’s good to see that students recognize a horrible thing when they see it, even if there are so few of us.
Those two hours of listening still haunt me. I cannot describe how refreshing it was to have that much of a breath of fresh air. I had a way out. All I had to do was take it. So I did.
Coming up with a specific bad memory is really hard. Choosing between all the good examples isn’t exactly fun. I think I have a good one though.
My girlfriend and I were getting ready to go to bed. She was in bed, I had just finished brushing my teeth. Normal night. My phone starts to ring. The number belongs to a friend of mine. He used to be my best friend. I couldn’t believe it. I smiled as I answered the phone. He hadn’t called me in months. I really didn’t know what to say. I let him talk. His phone got passed around between him and his girlfriend, relating her new job. How it was good to have a job and look for apartments. Then, it came down to the real business. He got back on to inform me that she was having computer problems, and this was the real reason he called me. Not to share good news, not to bullshit, he calls me late at night because his girlfriend has a computer problem that he cannot solve.
A few of my fellow computer science buddies and I have a certain philosophy when dealing with friends. We have our friends, and then we have the people who have been knocked down to the level of people who only call us for computer problems.
I strangely don’t remember the problem. I very vividly remember telling them the computer needed to go back to the IT department to get a piece of hardware replaced. I remember most vividly the conversation afterwards with my girlfriend, where she finally understood why I looked so upset. I’ve never had to put someone who was my best friend on the list of people who only call when they have a computer problem. I wish I had words to describe the feeling. I really don’t think I could ever put words to that in a million years. Emptiness, despair, and sorrow just don’t seem to do it justice.
I didn’t drink that night, thank god. I didn’t really sleep though. Lying awake with that emotion is horrible, and I hope that I never have to do it again. I wish I had just hung up the phone or not answered it entirely. Then I could have stayed a little more ignorant of the problem for a while.
The bad memories fill my thoughts a lot, along with the “what ifs” that go with them. What if I had said something different? What if I hadn’t gone with that person? What if I had decided to believe one person over another? Honestly, I’ll never know, and it is probably useless to spend my time wondering.
But I remember them all so readily. So I wonder. I try not to let it drive me insane. Fortunately, holding my girlfriend when I go to bed takes care of most of that. It’s the little stuff. This turned out a lot more depressing than I wanted it to, but I’m going to post it anyway. I apologize if this entry was too "live journal-y." Hopefully the next one will be less personal and more funny. Just the way the ball bounced tonight.
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