I was recently talking with my best friend. I don’t remember how we got onto the subject, but I advised her to take her secrets to the grave—bury them somewhere deep, throw away the key, tell no one, and move on with her life.
She looked at me and asked, “Are there secrets you’re keeping from me?”
Honestly, probably—but I may have forgotten those too.
I’ve compartmentalized so much of my life that I’ve locked entire parts of myself away and left them there. When I lost part of my memory a few years ago, I think many of my secrets disappeared with it. It’s like hiding something from yourself so well that eventually, even you can’t find it anymore.
These days, I joke that I have selective memory loss. I remember what deeply affects me and whatever else my brain decides is important. Everything else gets filed away somewhere with no apparent retrieval system.
I function normally. I handle my responsibilities and perform my job well. But parts of my past feel distant or completely missing, while smaller details go in one ear and out the other. Sticky notes, notebooks, and voice memos have become my best friends. If I don’t write something down, it may cease to exist.
My memory loss began after a severe reaction to medication. At the time, I had spent years trying different treatments to control my migraines. Because I had taken so many medications, I didn’t immediately realize how serious the reaction had become.
At first, the signs seemed small. I constantly misplaced things I had just set down and would tear the house apart trying to find them. I knew I needed to contact my doctor, but I would literally forget.
It was funny in the saddest possible way—the problem I needed help with was also preventing me from asking for help.
Eventually, it became frightening.
One day at work, I went to the restroom. When I came out of the stall, I suddenly couldn’t remember where I was or how I had gotten there. I looked in the mirror and thought, “Where am I?”
I knew who I was. I knew I was at work. But the moments connecting those facts were gone.
The same thing happened while I was driving. I would forget where I was going or why I was on the road. I would call my husband, tell him where I was, and ask him to help me figure out what I had been doing.
Lately, one memory keeps clawing its way back to the surface.
I never know what triggers it. It arrives without warning and pulls a deep, buried pain back into the light. It comes in flashes. I remember being with someone, but I can’t see their face or make out anything around us.
All that remains are the words they said and the pain I felt when I heard them.
Even when the details are gone, the emotions still know exactly where to find me.
I know a significant part of my memory is gone, and maybe some of it is better left there. I wasn’t always the best version of myself. I made decisions I regret, and I know I hurt people along the way.
I can’t recover every missing piece. All I can do is take responsibility for what I remember and give myself grace for what I don’t.
I lost pieces of my past, but I did not lose my ability to live, love, take responsibility, and keep moving forward.
I’m not stuck in the past because, honestly, I’ve lost most of it. In a strange way, that has forced me to live in the present.
Most days, I work, laugh, make plans, and live normally. But sometimes, a fragment breaks through—a word, a feeling, or a pain my mind forgot but my body somehow kept.
I’m learning that healing may not mean recovering every missing piece. Maybe it means accepting that some doors are better left closed, facing the ones that keep opening on their own, and choosing to remain present in the life I still have.