YOWZA!
Two weeks ago, I was driving in the city where I live and had
a spell of amnesia. Nothing looked
familiar. I had no idea where I was, how
I got there, or where I was going.
Let’s say this was unsettling, and not in the same way that
finding ants crawling in your Big Mac is unsettling. It was terrifying, like how it would be if A
Nightmare on Elm Street was real, except… What the hell is Elm Street and do I
live there or on Sycamore?
My cell phone battery had died, so I couldn’t even call for
help. And anyway, how do you tell people
to rescue you when you don’t know where they should go? (“Hi… can you come and get me? I’m in my car. On a street.
I see some pine trees. Oh and
there’s a German Shepherd”). Yeah, I was S.O.L. until I got my bearings,
which probably was only a few minutes, but nonetheless, the experience “drove
home” the fact that I’ve still got some cognitive challenges.
Interestingly, though, my brain still grasps abstraction and
allegory quite well. After I got home from
being lost, I cried, recharged my cell phone, took some deep breaths, and then
SUDDENLY IT HIT ME: Major life upheavals
of any kind are a bit like amnesia while driving. You think you know where you’re going,
then—BAM!—a close family member dies, or you lose the job you’ve held for 15
years, or your house burns down and you lose all your childhood photos and your
Freddie Kruger DVDs. Suddenly, your five-year
career plan, or your hope for love everafter, or your expectation that you’ll
take care of your health once the kids leave the nest, gets overshadowed by the realization that
there is no guarantee that your destination will even be there someday down the
road.
I cannot say for sure if and when I’ll regain my previous (may
I add excellent) ability to remember names, dates, stories, and places. I don’t know if and when I’ll stop having
crying jags in the middle of social gatherings because suddenly I cannot
recognize people’s faces. All I can do
is wait, summon my inner resources, and take notice of the details around me
and the progress I’ve made. Today, I
stayed awake for 12 hours without needing a nap, when just two months ago I
could only manage six hours. I no longer
have double vision, like I did before; in fact, I can see that on the carpet are two
ants crawling toward a piece of Dorito…
How is it that ants can find a crumb 20 yards away? That would be like me sensing food all the
way in Kansas and driving there from Ohio.
