My short-term memory is great and always has been. But there are occasional glitches in the system, moments that fail to register while hundreds of others dutifully line up in the chain of day-to-day memories that are cataloged in my head. I don’t understand why, but it happens just frequently enough that I can’t trust even my most recent memories.
My long-term memory has always been poor by comparison. Over time, the majority of nifty facts I picked up in school have evaporated from my brain, both those facts which I expected to forget, like how to conjugate certain French verbs, and those which I expected to remember for life, like how many oceans there are on Earth. Yes, it seems that an entire ocean leaked out of my memory unnoticed. It’s only back because one evening I wondered if I was smarter than a fifth grader and watched the TV show to find out (I’m not, by the way).
So I can’t trust my memory, short-term or long-term. That’s one of the reasons why I love the written word. Every time I write something down, that’s one more thing that I don’t have to worry about forgetting. The blog takes it one step further. Not only is it a record, but it’s a searchable record.
Technology is so cool.