2002-04-21 - 12:12 a.m.
Recovering Memories

This afternoon Jocasta visited. I'd forgotten how squeamish she is about movies; her tastes are pretty narrow. She was all "ew" about the prospect of going to watch The Scorpion King, and she didn't ever watch either of the Mummy movies, or any of the Jurassic Park trilogy, or Dracula 2000; in fact, she detests about half of my favorite movies, on "that's too much" grounds. This always puzzles the hell out of me, because she loved Braveheart, and The Rock, and the Indiana Jones movies. Whatever.

We watched my new copy of the 1982 Scarlet Pimpernel movie instead. Heh. It was as good as I remembered. We also shopped at the used book store, and wandered into the medieval history section. I was lucky enough to spot a copy of A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman, an in-depth analysis of fourteenth century life in Europe, and more specifically Normandy. It's one of the best history books I've ever read, and I couldn't resisit buying it.

My other major activity this weekend involved sifting through several boxes I brought from home containing memorabilia from my school years, from about fifth grade through college. I found several complete stories I'd entirely forgotten I'd written, lots of schoolwork, large sections of old written diaries, my 4-H award ribbons, my math trophies, and several high school award certificates.

It choked me up. I'd forgotten so much, both good things and bad. I felt like I was reclaiming a part of myself that had been deadened and worn away over the years. I may have been all over the map socially and in my interactions with teachers, but I was creative, I had lots of great success moments, and I believed in myself. The sad thing is, though, that everything I found, even the fifth grade stuff, was touched with defensiveness and melancholy. I thought that was something I'd made a habit in more recent years!

There's something depressing in the realization that there has never been a time in my concrete memory that was not tainted with weighty emotional pain.

Most of what I found also enhanced my recent theories about AD/HD. I have lots of stuff to use as demonstration material now; diary entries, notes from other people, teacher commentary, all kinds of things. I have thirteen years' worth of evidence. Think that's enough to demonstrate that this isn't just a passing fad of mine? I sure hope so. I don't know what more I could do! And next week, if I'm lucky, perhaps I can get Mom to help me find my grade school report cards, for even earlier information.

Enough; I'm exhausted from all the emotional activity today. I think I'll curl up on the couch and put in a DVD. Night, y'all.