I tend to have poor retention

By Jessica Pierotti

I time travel a lot. I live in the past, partially due to my obsessive and anxious mind, but also as a result of the current lack of stimuli in pandemic isolation conditions. Whenever I look at the current year I marvel at its excess. 2021? really?! I flashback to the night it rolled over to January 1st, 2000.

How significant that number felt, how historic. 
We were stepping into the future.

I attended a fancy dinner celebration with my Dad that night––the understudy for my mother who had come down with a cold and was too sick to go out. I had a pair of cardboard glasses doused in glitter, with zeros for the eyes, and wore my prized navy velour button-down and skirt ensemble. I remember watching him smile–charming strangers, cracking jokes. I felt adult, and special, and proud of him. He was probably flirting, but I was only 13 and likely unaware. I was still in that transitional tween phase where attraction, affection and bullying all kind of overlap. Maybe I still am. 

***

Despite being a seasoned miner of my memories, I tend to have poor retention. I worry that my inability to remember details about others comes off as a lack of interest. Sometimes I take notes after going on a date––Cares about teaching and his students. Is aware of his privilege. Gentlemanly? Detroit, Nebraska, Santiago, Chile, Buenos Aires. One sister 8yrs older, parents died young.

I torture myself over my weak memory, and admire those with detailed snapshots of their single digit years. Mine always seem so irreparably blurred, unstable and potentially fabricated. Once I recounted to my mother one of my birthday parties at the big house in England. She had rolled out bubble wrap across the brick patio in back, and let my crew of five-year-olds jump, pop and scream until we got bored of it–or ran out of bubbles.

She roared with laughter, “That’s insane Jess! I never let you do that. Can you imagine?! That sounds like a nightmare.”  

But I was so sure of it! It felt so solid––the sound, the sensation, the sunny fall day, my excessively dimensional 90s party dress with requisite white tights. Maybe it was her nightmare, but it was my dream. A dream that had traversed the weak permeable boundaries in my mind to become memory. I must have had a real birthday party that year, which of course I don’t remember. There’s a fuzzy image in my mind of my Dad juggling for a pile of cross-legged babes on our shiny parquet wood floor, but god knows what year that was, or if it was even my birthday. Instead, I vividly remember my memory's betrayal, and I remember my mother’s incredulity. And still, I remember the bubble wrap beneath my patent party shoes that never actually popped. 

***

Perhaps I wander off into memory because, while not comfortable sitting in the present, I also struggle with looking into the future. Is it morbid of me to primarily associate the future with death and loss? Sometimes I get trapped in the speculative, eyes locked on the chaos waiting in the wings. I always cry at the end of a good vacation, and I’m definitely terrified of falling in love again. 

At seven or eight years old my family took the perfect beach vacation. No itinerary, no sightseeing–just sun, sand, and snorkeling. Aside from my first jellyfish sting, it was flawless, and I was dreading returning home.

Choking back sobs, I hugged myself tight and stuttered, "But, I--don't-wantitto---endddd."

My exasperated mother tried to explain to me that I couldn't be sad about leaving when we were still here. I couldn’t grasp the logical solution being offered me. I was still preemptively heartbroken. I did understand that my emotions were unwelcome and inconvenient. Although I could not stop being sad, I could try to do a better job of hiding it from others.

Everything ended, but I could never grasp that everything also started.

***

How does anyone look into the future these days? I feel like it’s a responsibility I am somehow shirking. An adult task. Should I live in fantasy, project the future I want to have for myself, and attempt to conjure it like a magician? Or embrace my cynical side (most of my sides) and start planning for the dystopian future (present)? I feel like I can’t see beyond a week right now, but is this barrier self-imposed–a means of self-preservation?

Our house in Ohio never quite fit in with the neighborhood, something about it was awkward and brutish. Its seat on a sloped lot allowed for a basement walkout, with a mother-in-law suite add-on that made for an uncomfortable asymmetry. The wisteria vine had been weaving its way around the back deck for 30 years, long before we moved in. Some of its gnarled arms were as thick as tree trunks. Every spring it awoke and continued its forward march, determined to conquer the rooftop. Its tendrils could slip under a window screen and pop it loose overnight. Occasional aggressive prunings kept it at bay, but it would never be removed--everyone respected its seniority at the property too much. Plus, at that point it was hard to tell who was supporting who—the unruly vine, or the deck framed out of moldy 2x8’s. 

Maybe I should work on cultivating some blind confidence myself. A little faith in something can be a hell of a salve for the pains of this precarious world. Should I try believing in myself again? Or maybe other people as well?

***

I used to be a diver. Not competitively, I wasn’t fearless enough for that. But I loved the water, and took every single class available at the local pool, until I aged out. I was working on my back flip off of the 1 meter board and struggling. I like to see where I’m going, and never sit with my back to the door if it can be avoided. Physically flipping off a springed board is not that difficult. It’s all about the commitment. 

I perch on the tip of the gritty pale blue diving board, heels hanging over the water–deep breath, swing the arms overhead, push off and tuck. And don’t forget to point the toes. But a split second of hesitation, a flash of doubt behind the eyes, and you’ll fail to complete a full revolution. With my body still formed into a tightly tucked ball, my shins land perfectly parallel to the surface of the water. SLAAAP. Two seconds and I burst through the surface, shocked and gasping for breath. 

“DIVE TO THE BOTTOM! DIVE TO THE BOTTOM!” My coach yells from the side. 

I duck under the water, using broad breast strokes to pull myself through 12 feet of heavily chlorinated water. Touch-turn-kick off–surface. GASP.  

“Again! Dive!” He shouted. 

I duck down again, pulling my body through the water, as I feel the tears come. It’s a strange (but not unfamiliar to me) sensation to cry while underwater. The pain is searing down my legs but now my lungs are burning as well. Touch-turn-kick–I surface limp and gasping, and slowly drag myself to the side of the pool. “Go slow, you’re ok. It’s just gonna be an ugly bruise. Stay in the water for a minute.” My breathing begins to regulate while the tears start to flow faster. 

I don’t remember if he ever explained himself or if I just figured it out later. He was addressing my stress response. You can’t hyperventilate if you can’t breath, and you can’t focus on the pain if you’re busy swimming.