Omissions and Inclusions

Scarier to me than any of my memories are the things I feel like I SHOULD remember and don't, especially details of past relationships and friendships.

The digital age has provided me with an invaluable insight into my own personal history. Old email in-boxes, old email out-boxes (far more telling in some lights), and online journal entries refresh my feeble 26-year-old memory.

But there are gaps in the telling. I now regret not having recorded even more, only so that when I now question the truly important details ("Did I actually make out with Person X topless? What was that, 2004?"), I could find a definitive answer.

Oddly enough, I seem to have kept better track of my roller-coasters of emotions than of the actual events that triggered them. It's a bit pointless, really, to have recorded things from this angle; surely if I'd just written down what happened, the emotions could then follow?

But no, that's not true either. I read over chat logs and remember what I felt — but I don't remember what I felt.