I’m in that stage of the loop where it’s harder to be a morning person again. Sleep feels nice and when I wake up early, it’s still so dark I want to go back to sleep, so I often do. Sometimes more than once.Second sleeps are the ones that spoil the routine and you wake up off the natural sleep cycle. It can suck for a whole morning if you time it wrong.
So today I decided to stay up when I came back from the washroom break at 530am. I remembered the dream I had just interrupted was kinda cool but too much thinking about morning things and cats and life forced the memories of the less consequential dream out too quickly.
I have 4 pieces of my least favourite chocolate left. I ran out of funds, food and chocolate earlier in the week. These last rations are of the same Walmart brand, but include tiny glass shards. Not literally glass of course. They are apparently supposed to taste like caramel but with dentures and a dehydrated mouth, they are teeny tiny sharp bits. The upside is I eat one at a time and “savour” it as they slowly melt.
It took me over half an hour to remember what day it is today. Saturday. Not that there is anything specifically special about weekends or any day on the farm. I fluctuate between mental states in my head most days but the physical attributes are pretty identical from yesterday to today.
The isolation here is actually worse than it was in Niagara, but without the constant fear and the need to exist on eggshell locked in my room. Here I have no fears and I am free, but with no real benefits or friends to interact with.
I have grown to appreciate why people have cats. They teach tolerance and patience when they are annoying but demand respect and affection on their terms. Even when deoressed, it is hard to turn down a cats need to be touched and loved. The wrong time for it is often the exact distraction one needs.
It’s an interesting way of life that almost seems like one day repeating instead of a calendar. It takes more effort than usual to manually figure out a way to make each day seem interesting and different in case I need to remember anything. Otherwise September will be stored in my brain as that single memory with no save points.
No recall of any event separate from the last. I did enjoy the fall fair, but it was a less interesting repeat of the previous year and nothing unique to take up memory cells.
(I blew a couple of puffy clouds before that last paragraph and it shows.)
I like this idea. We are the curators of our own memory library. Each of us regulates how we interpret our universe and what gets stored and how we remember it. If we believe it, it is true in our universe, and so-called canon.
For me, memories seem to be saved in two ways. I remember floor plans and physical things more easily than people, names and faces. I attach these memories to interactions with people but not as much to the people. It’s too complex, even for me this morning but basically I have come to understand I enjoy almost nothing when I’m alone, and those memories don’t matter and I don’t ever see the need to recall them, so I lose the markers to them. I forget them.
When I’m with someone, or interacting, I learn and observe and make new memories which triggers a dopamine reaction and makes me feel. I crave that interactive stimulation. It literally feels good to be near somebody. Anybody. The time between those interactions is insignificant so if I see you today, and then in two weeks, it can feel like the same day for me. I don’t care about the idle time.
That is why I’m pretty much always happy to see you. I only save the memories that count.
…
In life without that daily, weekly or monthly interaction I have taken up what might be my first ever hobby. I make one or three videos of the monotony every single day. I try hard to make an identical event seem separate from the one I did yesterday. It’s a true challenge to attempt to separate 7 a week from themselves.
In September I probably managed four or five I could still remember and describe as unique or interesting. That’s better than zero I suppose. That means September has 5 bookmarks in my memory future me might use.
I am reminded of Douglas Adams again. Earth’s description in The hitchhiker’s guide to the Galaxy was “mostly harmless” which seemed quite normal and perhaps generous by an alien and incredibly offensive to an earthman. I get it. In the vastness of an inhabited universe, the fact that one planet without intergalactic travel makes the book at all is charity. The human brain may remember everything it has ever done since birth in its cells or DNA, but the only thing that matters is the retrieval system and if you don’t do anything that’s worth remembering, then mostly harmless it’s a pretty good description of Earth.
Of course as it turns out, Earth wasn’t even a planet and it was pretty significant in the overall galactic story because it may have been the computer that finally defined the ultimate answer to life to the universe and everything. I imagine that would have guaranteed an update in the guide.
That’s the thing about memories. We can forget all of them for ourselves but if something significant does happen or did happen, it’s generally possible to find those memories. For me I seem to have elaborate memories of things with no do we decimal system or reference card but if somebody else starts telling me about something that I was present for it’s quite possible I will remember it with their help. If nothing more, I might be able to describe the floor plan.
I wish I had more chocolate, but I am awake and this writing helped my mood a bit. I will now begin my day of simulated interaction known as my morning social media browse. A vital part of my day, and simulated smiles.
End of part one.
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