My Achilles Heel

If there was one flaw of mine that could turn me from mild-mannered Asian college student into Greek tragedy, it would be my memory. My memory is so bad that I forget things people have just said to me. It's so bad that the only thing I can count on is images - visuals. I don't remember words spoken or dates. I can't pinpoint a memorable night down to even the month in which it occurred. It's come to the point where if Chris says I said something or did something, I have to believe that I did it, even though it may seem uncharacteristic of me. Imagine for a second just how much access Chris has to the possiblity of manipulating me... :P

My bad memory is a combination of things. However, it stems from one terrible center: my abusive childhood. I remember very few bad things that happened to me when I was young. The only things I remember are the feeling of flying through the air and across the room until my body collided into a closet door and broke it (I don't remember why I was thrown or if it hurt, just that feeling of weightlessness and then the inevitable crash) and hitting my head on the end of a banister as a child and having my dad come in and beat me for accidentally hurting myself. The rest of these bad memories come to me in the form of stories from others - how I was thrown into a clothes dryer and had it turned on with me inside, how my arm was broken with a strike from a telephone, and other seemingly impossible stories of abuse from my father.

But I guess it happened. People tell me it did. So, I guess I have to believe it. But I don't remember any of it. I've blocked it out - bad memories I never want to remember. And I think my brain has gotten so used to burying memories deep inside of me that it doesn't know how to do anything else. I see my childhood in the way that someone would flip through a photo album - just snapshots and scenes with no captions. Even if I could remember, I'm not sure if I'd want to. But there are memories that I do want to hold on to, like standing at the stove, cooking, Chris sneaks up behind me, slides my hair away from my neck and presses his warm lips against my soft skin *sigh* But who knows when even that will bury itself like all the rest? :(