Zapping Out

Your memory is a monster; you forget – it doesn’t. It simply files things away. It keeps things for you, or hides things from you – and summons them to your recall with a will of its own. You think you have a memory; but it has you! (John Irving, author)

Last week, I finally saved all the photos taken in Italy and took the thumb drive to the shop for printing. I collected them last evening and looked through them, one by one, a few times.

I looked at them, totally detached and void of feelings. Whenever I look at photos, I would normally smile, frown, recognise, reminisce, remember, react. But this time, I was more than deadpan. My mind and heart were dead.

It was as if I was looking at the images in newspapers, magazines and even old archives or books – I did not feel a thing or seem to ‘’recognise’’ those images. Even if there was ‘’recognition’’, it was devoid of any attachment – the way you look at Tony Blair’s picture in Time magazine, for example.

Maybe I was just exhausted. After all Sheryl commented I looked ‘’really very tired’’ when I dragged my feet into VirtualFit last evening.

But I worry. No, I grieve. About not remembering. No, I am aware I am not suffering from amnesia. I am just aware that my mind has simply shut out a portion of my life that was too beautiful and special to sustain. And that I have somehow succeeded in suppressing a lot of feelings.

I know I have asked friends to pray for peace of mind, strength and ‘’recovery’’. I know I have made the same prayers.

I now wonder if there is such a thing as ‘’over-praying’’ ? That our prayers have been so ‘’effective’’ that it zaps out everything?

There is a difference between ‘’recovery’’ and total “zapping out”, which is hollow, and numb.

I want to ‘’let go’’, and still love. I want to recover, and still remember, not be ‘’dead’’.