missing the kick.
let me explain to you how I’ve felt for over a month now.
the things that defined me are ideas, not actual memories.
I used to bake every week. cookies, pie, cupcakes.
I used to walk the dogs every day or every other day.
I used to miss my dogs and want to spend all my time with them.
I haven’t baked in almost two months.
I walk the dogs once every couple weeks if I remember.
I barely think about my dogs and am no longer filled with the same emotions I used to have for them.
I know I used to do those things.
Used to.
but there are no memories of them. I can’t picture myself baking. Or knitting. Or reading a book. Or walking my dogs.
it’s not that those are the only things I forgot. I forgot everything. I remember nothing. I remember memories, but the memories are gone.
really meaningful songs—iconic, life-defining—sound like white noise. the emotions don’t come like they used to. those “every time I hear this song I feel exactly the same and it’s amazing” moments are gone.
in some ways it makes me think of “Inception” last night. like I got stuck in one of the deeper layers, a dream within a dream within a dream…I know something’s wrong but I don’t wake up.
but when did it happen and why?
I can’t even remember when I started to feel this way—no beginning, it started in the middle. I could’ve been in the middle of answering the phone at work or putting my makeup on in the mirror one morning. I don’t know.
a few times at work I’ve caught myself staring at my reflection in the bathroom. I stare and stare until I almost get scared because I’m looking at someone that isn’t me. the eyes don’t match.
I constantly ask myself how I got here. there are familiar faces, recurring elements that never changed—going to work, performing the job almost mindlessly.
I don’t remember when I started working there. I don’t remember who I was before BN. something turned off, or maybe something more powerful, brighter switched on.
it just…feels…like someone wiped the slate clean. the cluttered, intricate, minute detail-filled surface that was my mind. pictures, scenes, sounds, smells, every spectrum of emotion crammed together that I could rummage through and pluck from at random without effort.
trying to do the same now is impossible. the thoughts are murky and last for a split second. too quickly to get a good look. I think I remember his face. I think I remember his laugh. I see him smiling at me with this mystified expression in his eyes. as if asking himself if I’m real—and he would usually grab for me a moment later and pull me close.
I can make myself remember him. but I always wonder if the memories are real or something I embellished in the retelling to myself. did he ever say the things you swear he said to you?
did he ever look at you the way you think he did?
did you really sleep beside him?
or was it just a dream?
