Panic attack

I can't seem to recall much from the past year. When I realized this hours before midnight on New Year's Eve, I started to panic. Laid down. Overwhelmed feelings. Tight chest pains. I felt myself shrinking under some tremendous pressure, yet at the same time, I was oddly removed from my body. It was frightening, having so many thoughts racing that I felt trapped. It's always about time. I've lived two decades now. What did I think when I was 10 (why can't I remember)? What will I think when I'm 30 (what might have happened by then)? What happens when time stops for me? Panic attack.

I am always worried about my memory. It scares me to death to think I might live without knowing what I've lived. Already I have trouble remembering day to day. So much input -- news, feelings, family, friends, me, life -- yet so little retention. What kills me is these include the that things matter the most and perhaps the only things that matter. My mind is constantly cluttered with the useless and I can't remember. I'll know I had an idea last month, I was on the verge last week, and I had an epiphany yesterday, yet I can't understand how or recall what today. Then, I feel that part of my brain must have atrophied some time between then and now, surviving only enough to remind me of a grave loss. Perhaps it's not an issue people my age tend to think about too often, but I wonder, do others fret over how critical to life memory is? My greatest fear? Alzheimer's. That slow insidious decay of remembrance and thought, falling into dementia.

Some assurance of my own life and humanity came from an unlikely and forgotten place, though in retrospect it should have been quite obvious. I remembered an old blog of mine, begun when I was sixteen and kept sacred for my four years of high school. It had fallen to the wayside when I left for college optimistic and assured of the enlightenment I would reach. Looking back and reading through some of the old drama and tragedies of my teenage life was admittedly embarrassing, even painfully so. But here was my life as I had lived it, the thoughts raw and unedited in the thick of then-seeming crises. I was surprised how words revived from years-old writing could muster more emotion in myself than memories from the closing year. Regardless of the situations, by the very nature of the passing of time life changed and so did my thinking. I doubt I had ever noticed it before and it was comforting. I realized whatever I do or whatever I'm going to do, life develops itself.

I've lost some of that old confidence but I've discovered much about myself too. It doesn't matter too much where I'm headed, even in the light of hopes and aspirations, but I really do need the past to anchor my life. I need to reflect and remember at times point to assure myself I'm growing as a person. The past year might be remembered for all the wrong reasons, yet it surely was formative. Invisibly so, it will still lead me with its lost histories. How about I build from here and try this once again to remember.

Life is short and understanding is fleeting.