Piecing It Together

Any of my friends will tell you I have a useless memory. And it doesn't strike me how bad until I am jolted by a sudden return of a snippet of the past which brings on an involuntary Cheshire smile or a swell of uncontrolled embarrassment or even a flash of pure anger. Then the feeling disappears and I marvel at how strong that tiny piece of memory was, and feeling completely at a loss as to why I had misplaced that memory in the first place. It's like being half a person. I am never fully aware of myself and every day I feel like I am still premature, or delayed in my personal growth, when perhaps these feelings may be unfounded if I could just refer back to any minute detail of my past and find answers to my doubt.

Watched the end of A Streetcar Named Desire today, where Vivien Leigh's Blanche DuBois is having a conversation with Marlon Brando who plays Stanley. She talks about beauty fading, but that she has intelligence and culture and depth to offer, and being rich in that sense. Though she does lose her mind by the end of the film I do like this bit of self-confidence and don't feel it's at all part of the dementia she suffers towards her self-image. It was almost a glimmer of hope that she understands the reality of her situation but still holds a small flicker of hope for a better future...that is, until Stanley brutally demolishes her with his words.

Someone once did that to me, brutal to me with words. I was with him for a year and every day knew it was shit and literally counting down the days till I left. But the strangest, most unexplainable thing in that non-relationship relationship was that I'd wanted it to work so much that I kept defending him to myself. I still cannot explain to myself to this day why I felt like this about a man I didn't even want in the first place. Then I left. And I was a normal human being again. The hollows in my memory bank are serving me well.