As many of you know, I have what's recently been dubbed Aphantasia, which is an inability to create pictures in one's mind. While most people, if you mentioned your mother's face or the house you grew up in or the Taco Bell down the street, would summon up an image of some kind, there is a tiny percentage of us who do not do that.
One of things I've been working on is how this affects the memory. You see, while I can remember facts, I don't store them in a visual way. So, for example, I remember that an old girlfriend of mine wore a red dress at a Christmas party, and she looked amazing. But if you asked me any details about the dress (Was there cleavage? Did it show off her shoulders? How long was it?), I have no idea. I simply know that it was red and sexy.
I recently saw Wicked for the 2nd time. I remembered that I loved it the first time, and remembered a lot, but not all, of the story beats. But it was, in a way, like seeing it for the first time. I knew facts about it from the first time I saw it, but it was like experiencing it for the first time, because I couldn't compare the 2nd time to the 1st time. Those memories simply aren't in my head.
There's something similar with grief. I don't miss my Dad. Because frankly, I don't remember him. I remember things about him - roughly the way he looked, the way he talked, his mannerisms. But I cannot pull up what I think most of you would call a memory.
(I've also been wondering if this is related to why I don't seem to hear or experience God. There's no experience to be had, for me, other than the reality of the present moment. Others in a church may be carried away by their emotions and experience something 'other' than themselves, but I do not. I don't doubt that others have experienced God, but I have not - not in any direct way.)
This really calls into question whether I have memories in the same way as most people. Because I remember facts; I do not experience them or replay the images or anything like that.
The nice thing about all this is that I live in the Now. I don't know that I experience nostalgia or regret like other people do. I don't think I miss people to the same degree. I may be bothered by having an unresolved issue, but it's only because it's unresolved. I don't spend time replaying an event and thinking about how I might have done things differently. While I may wish for more human companionship, I'm not necessarily missing a specific person, unless it's about how they had a particular sense of humor or empathy or some trait that I have mentally jotted down.
So, like they say, I live in the now. Because it's my only option.
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