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In memory?
I’ve had a great life, I think
BY KRIS FRIESWICK

I’ve always believed that the most important things in life are not money, status, or fame, but experiences and friendships. As such, I have spent what little money I have on traveling the world, meeting interesting people, having fascinating cross-cultural exchanges, and seeing enchanting foreign lands. I have developed deep and abiding friendships with some of the finest people ever to tread the planet. I’ve been told I’ve led a very full and rewarding life.

I sure wish I could remember it.

This is not a memory problem of the " I got hammered last night and I can’t remember a thing " variety. This is a systemic issue that goes back to my childhood. I ascribe it to being preoccupied, from a very young age, with what comes next. Even in first grade, I was so busy daydreaming about what would happen after school, that summer, or in second grade, that I didn’t retain many memories of my day-to-day childhood, or my first-grade teacher Mrs. Wall, or the little classroom at Sutton Elementary School where I began my glorious academic career (only parts of which — generally involving graduations and keg parties — I remember). I have spent my entire life not being present in the here and now — and therefore, most of it didn’t make much of an impression.

Fortunately for me, my very dear friends Beth and Gail have excellent memories. In fact, between them and my Palm PDA, I can easily retrieve information about most of the past 21 years of my life. (I met Beth and Gail at 18, so I still have to rely on my sister and brother to fill in the younger years.) Thanks to my friends and their remarkable powers of recall, I can now tell the tale of the night we were involved in the legendary 1982 campus-wide water fight at the University of New Hampshire — indeed, I can tell the story with a level of detail that makes it sound like I actually remember it (especially the part where we beaned then-college-president Evelyn Handler with a gigantic water balloon as she, her husband, and two friends were leaving their home for a black-tie dinner). With my friends’ patient and persistent prodding, I can vaguely remember the time Beth and I went on vacation to Aspen, but it took us four days to get there and we ended up stranded in Houston. My friends even help me remember stories about stuff that happened when they weren’t around, but that I told them about (and then promptly forgot).

Some of the things I forget are events so unique (and often traumatic) that you’d think they would be seared irreversibly into my memory. But even the most earth-shattering occasions tend to vanish from my brain as soon as they have passed. Some memories, like the night a stranger broke into my apartment and I chased him away with a butcher knife, are better forgotten. Others, I genuinely miss (like my college-graduation party; I draw a complete and utter blank on that one). So Beth and Gail have been invaluable to me as " Team Kris’s Memory. "

I’ve also learned to keep a good visual record of things I’ve done. I have a photo-album collection that could put a career librarian to shame. But several years ago, I discovered that it had a disturbing flaw. When I was moving my now-deceased grandmother into a nursing home back in 1998, we spent a few hours looking through her old albums. Because of her rapidly failing memory, which had been fine until about age 93, she had no idea who any of the people in the photos were (including herself, oddly). When I got home, I pulled out an album from college and realized that I had no idea who about half the people were, either. From that day forward, I started writing little labels for each and every picture, listing who was in it, what they were doing, and why I cared.

Perhaps most important, my memory issues are a big part of the reason I became a writer. If I write a story about something after it happens (but before I forget about it), and the story gets published in an esteemed periodical such as this one, and I cut it out and put it in a file, it creates another source of reference for when I inevitably start wondering what I was up to back in good ol’ 2003.

Given that I am long- and short-term-memory challenged, you’d think I would’ve revised my life philosophy and gone for the money/status/fame thing instead of the experience/friendship angle. Since I’m doomed to forget it all anyway, I might as well be rich, right? But in the final analysis, money, status, and fame all fade — just like my memory does. At least with my current approach, I get Gail and Beth, and their treasure-trove of stories about our lives together. There’s nothing I love more than sitting with them, sharing a bottle of wine, and hearing about all the fun we’ve had together over the years. It makes me wish I’d been there.

Kris Frieswick can be reached at k.frieswick@verizon.net

Issue Date: March 20 -27, 2003
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