The Past

I am great at remembering things. I often only need to hear a line from a TV show or movie once to memorize it (and I love to quote The Simpsons), and I tend to be able to recall events with crystal clarity. Even now, I remember interactions with people that happened six, seven years ago as if they happened yesterday. But I don't remember much of my past. There are holes, where I'm not sure what happened. Not moments but big chunks.

For example, I only remember a little of my sophomore year of high school, and I don't remember my freshmen year at all. This is mostly likely due to my life during that time being empty; the parts of my sophomore year that I do remember, I had been befriended by two senior girls, and all I recall is knowing them. My freshmen year, I didn't really have any friends. At least, I assume I didn't. I honestly do not remember anything from that year. I don't even know if I was stressed out or lonely.

Another thing that happens is that I confuse the chronology of things. One year, I had a crush on a female friend of mine. It was nothing serious, and I really only liked her because she was a friend, a girl that talked to me, but I can't remember if it happened during my sophomore year or junior year. When I try to rationalize one or the other, I run into problems. It couldn't have been my sophomore year because I knew the two senior girls, but it couldn't have been junior year because I had that English class where I sat next to this cute girl, and I had eyes for her (though it never developed into a crush because I never talked to her outside of school). It had to be one of those years that I liked this friend of mine, but I'm not sure which. That's the way my memory works - it is flawed in the way it sorts information, though when I know something, I know it.

I don't think about my past much. It was long ago, and thinking about it doesn't help me one bit. That's why every now and then, I'll remember something that startles me. Like that fact that when I was in middle school, my family moved around a lot because we'd hit a very rough spot financially, and that for a very brief time, we were technically homeless, staying in motels and with a friend of the family. Or that I was angry at my brother growing up because he always had friends coming over, or he was going over to their houses, and I never did. Or that during either eighth grade or ninth grade, a girl named April liked me, but I rejected her because I liked another girl named Kimberly. When I remember these things, my response is, "Hmm, that did happen, didn't it?" Then I'll forget about it again. Because I don't spontaneously recall any good memories. I'm not sure if I even have any good memories, that would make me smile and think fondly of the past.

I hate the past. It was terrible, lonely and cold and filled with anger and hate. Up to a point, I felt far more sadness than happiness, so that it was like I was never happy at all, and even when I started to be happy, I ruined everything by being an idiot. Perhaps it wasn't my fault, I was inexperienced with people and I've always been a late bloomer and unsure how to respond to the more "mature" actions of my peers, but that doesn't mean that I wasn't the one that fucked up. When I think of the past, I think of pain, missed opportunities, humiliation, terror, anger, helplessness - an empty room with dark walls where I hug my knees and wish I was somewhere else.

My parents are good people. They've taken care of me, they have good hearts, and they've been trying for a long time to be happy. But growing up, the only memories I have of them are of being neglected and them fighting. My father wasn't around much (I learned years later that he spent a lot of time doing drugs with his lowlife friends and acting like he wasn't fifteen years younger than he was), but he did live with us. It's not like he disappeared. Sometimes he'd check himself into a mental health program, to get the help he needed (bipolar's the best thing he's got), but according to my mother, he only did so to get out of being responsible for bills. He'd blow all our money doing drugs, then when the bills were due and something had to be done, he'd check himself in. It's only been recently that he's cleaned up his act, after getting arrested for the second (or third) time for selling weed; the last time, he could have gone to jail for a couple of years, and that made him buckle down and stop the bullshit. He is doing a lot better, but it's hard to let go of the resentment I hold towards him, because he wasn't there for me (I can't think of a single thing he taught me; I even had to figure out how to shave by myself) and he hurt out family a lot with his stupid drug habit and terrible money sense.

My mother worked at night when I was a child, so I didn't see her much either. My memories of her are more fond, but she brought her share of troubles, too. She loves cat, always has, and she seemed to collect them when I was young. Imagine bringing home a stray, then another one, then another. Three cats isn't too bad, right? But they were strays, and we either didn't have to money to get them fixed or were too lazy to ever get it done, so of course, the female one got pregnant. Kittens are born, and suddenly three cats becomes eight cats. Time passes, the kittens grow up, they get pregnant, and bam! Eight cats turns into sixteen. That sort of thing. We had a ton of cats, they shit all over the place because we couldn't keep the litter boxes clean, they ransacked our things, and they pissed off our dad (who was always looking for an excuse to be pissed off). On more than one occasion, I went to school with my backpack smelling like cat piss. Imagine being told by the principle that you need to go home because you stink. There were also the deaths - out of a litter of six, three kittens might live for more than a month. That's the way animals are, not all the young are strong enough to survive, but when you're a little kid and love cats, holding a dead kitten in your hands hurts. It hurts like hell, and the fact that it's the sixth dead kitten you've held doesn't make it hurt any less.

It's a wonder that I don't hate cats, but I still love them. I guess because I never think about my past.

My parents fought constantly. It never turned physical, thank God, but they weren't above throwing shit at each other and breaking things. I cried a lot. A couple of times, I missed school because my parents had been fighting in the morning, and they spared me and my brother the trouble of having to go to school with red eyes and heavy hearts. I can't stand fighting. In an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon blows up when Leonard and Penny are arguing; whenever I see that scene, I understand exactly how he feels. To this day, I can't stand people arguing near me. It will drive me into a bad little place, where it's like my blood is ice and darkness covers my skin like a suit.

That's my childhood - a run-down, stinking cat-filled house and loud, constant arguments. There was no good. No family picnics, no bedtime stories, no fun summer vacations, no friends, no joy. I hate it all, and I wish I could forget it forever. I can't even say that I suffered a lot and use it to explain why I'm as withdrawn as I am. No, if I tell people about this, their response will be, "That wasn't too bad. My childhood sucked, too." Well, that's just great. Everybody had a shitty childhood. And I'm the only one that let the not-too-bad childhood turn him into a people-hating, closed-off person that is surrounded by a three-foot thick wall, that doesn't let anybody in nor anything out, save for what can slip through the cracks. Fantastic.

I'd think of the happy times during high school and afterward, but those are fringed with horror, such as the birthday party where First Love got raped and the incident that gave me the scar I will forever bear on my left arm. I still remember the rocking bed, the night that wouldn't end, the asshole telling someone to shut me up. I still remember what the fat inside my arm looked like, the way the blood came out of one place just the way water comes out of a tiny hole in a hose, how freaked out the guy was, and how I smiled at the EMTs when they showed up. I remember so much, it's almost like they're good memories, like how you imprint every detail of the perfect day with the perfect person, but when I think about what the memories mean, I get sick to my stomach. Just thinking about my arm makes me want to throw up. I try to remember how I stared at the cut, the image I saw, but it's unfocused. I try to make it clearer, but it's like my mind is going to snap, and a voice whispers, "No no no," over and over again, and I have tears in my eyes and my chest is tight, and I just can't do it, I have to stop trying. I don't know why I want to see it again, why I want to remember that image exactly as I saw it, but I've tried for years to reproduce it. I can see it better now, but my mind is numb, and I only want to see it as I'm feeling something. It doesn't make any sense. I think I'm trying to destroy myself.

I'll tell the birthday party story later, as well as the story of the scar. I will get to them eventually, but it may be some time. I have to be in the right mood to write about them. Rather, the right state of mind.