How to Forget

An exploration

I sink back on to the bed and heave a sigh.  My bedroom door is cracked open.  A trail of multicolored butterfly stickers hovers over the brass doorknob, sure to peel the white paint from the surface if ever we attempt to remove them.  I kind of love that.

I can hear the babysitter's voice in the next room; she’s reading Lilly a book about a mouse who's learning how to be a flower girl in a wedding. We found it at the tiny library over on Ozone Street.  I hate that book.  But Lilly is interested in weddings right now.

Wisps of brown fringe tickle my eyelashes.  I’m in desperate need of a haircut, and spend an ample allotment of my hours each day sweeping my bangs from side to side trying to keep them out of my eyes.

I’m in need.  I’m in need.  I’m in need.

I’m in need of shirts free of toddler snot, a pair jeans to fit my constantly-changing body, a streaming series that can fulfill all of my entertainment longings in one fell swoop.

I’m in need of more childcare; a holistic physician; eight hours of sleep; someone besides me to be the CEO of my self-care.

I’m in need of more quality time with my family; more time away from my family; more silence.

I’m in need of more dedicated time to write; more physical touch; more self-belief; more awe.

I.  Am.  In.  Need.

A tiny rose quartz heart sits on the edge of the bed.  Lilly came running in this morning, saying, “THIS IS FOR YOU”; she held it out in her hands along with a card from my bedside table that reads, “Surrender”.

My formerly-white/now-dishwater-colored socks hang limp at my ankles.  My grey joggers fray at the side seams from too many rough bouts in the washing machine.  Outside the window, the afternoon fog hangs in the sky muting the colors in the room, reminding me of the early days of having an infant - this time of day being The Witching Hour.  I remember the isolation and desperation of that phase.

I remember.  Which is kind of a big problem.  I hang on.  I keep track.  I catalog.

My husband Nick forgets.  Inconsequential details… but also significant things.  Public underminings, lucrative deals stolen, career-decimating rumors spread.  He forgets. Sometimes I’ll say to him, “Don’t you remember when so-and-so threw you under the bus and blamed you for such-and-such and then denied it afterward?” - or some other example of a dramatic occurrence.  He has zero recollection.  ZERO.  Or maybe he just stuffs it into the basement of his subconscious.  Either way, it’s gone.

What I’m saying is, he actually chooses to live this way.  He says he hates the way it feels to hang on to stuff like that; he doesn’t want the karma of the past.  And somehow, he’s, like, actually able to do this - to will himself to forget.

I remember.  I remember it all.

I remember the weeks of my newborn crying inconsolably, and the hours I spent bouncing her around to soothe her as I wept from the shock and fatigue of becoming a mother.

I remember my bridesmaid Angela barely speaking to me on my wedding day, whispering to me mid-reception that she’d thrown up and hadn’t slept the night before because she was so triggered by our wedding.

I remember in the sixth grade when I told Jamie Barrett she shouldn’t start rumors about Darcy Leeds, and Jamie sending Sheniqua Jackson (a seventh-grader) to threaten me outside of the cafeteria while my friends encircled us and watched.  I remember no one taking my side.

I remember walking into my grandparents’ house on Easter morning, my grandfather standing to hug me and the scent of Old Milwaukee on his breath.  I remember his wet lips pressing against my mouth for a kiss, his unshaven face scratching my cheeks as he held me too tightly, too close and for too long.

These are all things I would like to forget.  But I remember.    

It’s time to start dinner. I stare at the ceiling and contemplate what lies ahead.

Another evening of asking Nick about his day across the dinner table as Lilly shouts, “NO ONE CAN TALK. ONLY READ TO ME.”

Of 17 overtures at bath-time before I elicit shrieks and tears by lifting her body into my arms and depositing it in the water.

Of nonstop petitions for more playtime, evening snacks, bedtime stories and trips upstairs for forgotten stuffed animals.

Of collapsing into the couch at the end of the night, too tired to speak, wondering how we’ll do it all again tomorrow.  And of waking up knowing that no matter what else happens, I am guaranteed a day that includes protests, tears, and screaming.

I take a deep breath and decide that tonight I’ll pretend.  Pretend that I’m like Nick - facing a blank slate, inoculated to the past. What if I didn’t have to remember?

As I fixate on the pale blue ceiling, I see it.  It’s right here. It’s not that Nick forgets.  It’s that he’s willing to forgive.

Forgive and forget, forgive and forget, forgive and forget.  But, like, what if that’s true?   What if just being open to the possibility of forgiveness is the way to forget?  What if I just choose my own peace over my need to understand or defend things?  What if I can be momentarily liberated from being In Need just enough to be new, and new, and new again?  So full of presence that there is only and always this moment of experience rising and falling away.

I roll over, push myself up off the bed and open the butterfly-encrusted door.

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For You:

• What’s feeling challenging right now?

• Is there someone in your life who looks like they're having an easier time with the thing you’re struggling with?

• What positive quality do you see in that person (i.e., peace, joy, neutrality) that you could borrow or try on? What difference do you think it might make?

Leave a comment or write me back and let me know.

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That Was Helpful.

Resources

• My two best reads of 2022:  The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck and A Radical Awakening by Dr. Shefali.  Both fundamentally transformed me for the profoundly better.

• Malcolm Gladwell interviews Rick Rubin on creativity.

  I got real binge-y this week and listened to a few different interviews about Rick’s new book, The Creative Act.  This one was my favorite.

Know someone who’d be helped by reading this?  Pass it along.

With loving,

Laura