Totally forgot today was Thursday. I was just on the subway, coming home from a friend’s birthday party, rocking out to “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! I could be your girlfriend,” by Avril Lavigne on my iPod nano, and I was like, Oh, shit, I forgot about Therapy Thursdays.

I couldn’t believe I had completely forgotten about it. There have been a couple of times since we started Crucial Minutiae that I haven’t written my weekly column, but there was always a good reason. I was heartbroken. It was my birthday. That kind of thing. It was a choice. I never just forgot.

The thing is I’m not a forgetful person. I have an excellent memory. I will run into someone, an acquaintance I haven’t seen in a few years, and remind them of something specific they said to me. They’ll look at me in shock, having barely remembered my name. My ex-boyfriend used to actually rely on me for my memory. I would often have to recap important conversations. Sometimes I would remind him of an event in his life that happened before me, something he had once told me and had forgotten about.

I took a graduate psychology course on memory at the New School while I was in college. It covered long term and short term memory disorders, cases where people lost their short term memory, but remembered important identity details. Or cases in which someone’s memory would become distorted in such a way that they would remember their life from twenty years ago, thinking what they were doing then was what they were doing now, not realizing they weren’t a lumberjack or teacher anymore. It’s strange to think our entire lives are dependent on our memory. Memory helps keep us connected to the people we love. Memory helps us know who we are. Movies like Memento and Fifty First Dates show us what hell our lives would be without our memory, or in those particular cases, without our short term memory.

Just as my ex-boyfriend valued my memory, I valued his lack of memory. We’d pass a building that we had passed many times before and he’d notice the curve of the wall or the way the light hit the window and make the same exact comment about it every time. I loved the consistency of his reaction. It made me trust him.

There can be beauty in forgetfulness. It can mean you’re really living in the moment.

That’s what I did today. I woke up early, did a cool radio interview with a station in Myrtle Beach, met a new friend for a walk in the park, met another friend for lunch, went to therapy, met with the tarot reader who read cards at my book party, took a nap, showered, and went downtown to meet yet another friend for her birthday. It was fun day, a day that got me out of my head, unlike the past week where I was sick, inside my apartment, feeling sorry for myself, totally focused on the past and what I had lost.

So here’s to… shit, what was I saying?

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Kimmi
Therapy Thursdays