Life as Betsy

There are plenty of upsides to having a phenomenal memory. You can remember details others overlooked or quickly dismissed. You don’t need to sign up for a Birthday club for reminders of all your friends and family’s birthdays, because you never forget them. You can recall credit card numbers and addresses at the drop of a dime, even ones you probably shouldn’t know or recall. You are awesome at trivia games. You can learn lines and poems for recollection so easily. You don’t need to look at recipe cards for long before you can just see it in your head.

But there is a downside to it as well. Like those birthdays you don’t want to remember. July 5th. May 17th. February 22nd. August 17th. November 1st. April 3rd. Even though they are just like any other day, there is something in the back of your mind that calls to you when you glance down at the calendar. Then there are the life changing moments that are forever seared into your head - the phone call that came the night Grandma died. The horrific dreams you didn’t want to have, let alone remember.

I read somewhere that for every one compliment a person remembers, they can recall 100 negative things that were said to them or about them. Its stats like that which make me a little envious of my friend Aja, who has been smart enough to write down the wonderful things people have said to her and about her throughout the years. She has something tangible and concrete to look at if she needs to stop and remember those words.

Whether you want to or not, you remember a lot of things. From the time you were two and half or three and had that first real independent thought. Thats how old I was when my mother once left me in the family room, sitting on the floor while she went to strap my baby brother into his carseat. It hit me then, as I sat there waiting for her, that if she left right then and there, I’d be alone. I wasn’t scared or worried. My independent spirit probably delighted in the idea of being a big girl and on my own. But that is my first real memory. Its as fuzzy and clear at the same time as so many others from my childhood.

I can remember making Jacob McLoughlin vomit when I asked him if he remembered when he threw up the first day of school. It was a stupid thing that a third grader would do. I can remember the little boy who got his finger stuck in a hole in the side of the playground slide and the squirrel that managed to find its way into the school library. I can remember the rule in kindergarten where you couldn’t stack the cardboard blocks any taller than your head. I remember singing "Cherokee People" in choir and Miss Nishatani sliding her fingers down the keys at the end of each chorus. I loved it when she did that. I can remember Vacation Bible School and the first Dodge Aries Mom drove for a week that was maroon and had a bad starter. I can remember the day that we got a radio tape player installed in the second, sky blue Dodge Aries. I can remember Sugar and Libby - our first two cats. I can remember snack time at pre-school. I can remember carrying a Cherokee book bag when it was popular to carry Esprit. I can remember the night at dinner that I told my parents I felt I was old enough and mature enough to start watching "Bevery Hills 90210" We sat down and watched the season premiere together and they disagreed. It was the first season that Brenda was gone and Valerie came to town. I can remember dancing with my dad to "Love Shack" at my cousin Amy’s wedding and riding around with her sister Tammy the day before the wedding, running last minute errands. On the radio we heard Sophie B. Hawkins "As I Lay Me Down" and the theme song to "Friends". I can remember having to do a "getting to know you" assignment in Mr. Klein’s class and my partner was Jenny Weber. I can still remember the first time I laid eyes on both Kate and Aja in high school, and Jessica Lawrence too. I can remember Melinda Ronin putting liquid Oralgel on her hands. I can remember Wally Miller’s gag on the last day of sixth grade, where he pretended to vomit, but it was a can of chunky soap. Bruce Turner dipped his finger in it, licked it, and said it tasted good. I can remember watching "Wayne’s World" in a film class in eighth grade. I remember the dress I wore to my elementary school graduation. It was white with a magenta layer underneath and when we washed it before I wore it, the colors ran and turned my dress and pale pink. Robyn Hoofnagle and I sang "Friends are Friends Forever" at that graduation. I can remember Jamie Davis making a face when she heard she and I had the same birthday, as if my being born on the very same day of the very same year as her somehow tainted her. I can remember loathing the Jaunt at Gaiser and pretty much everything else that had anything to do with gym. Every Friday, if we did all twenty of our jumping jacks in perfect unison and no one screwed up, we didn’t have to do the rest of the daily warm ups. Billy Martindale was behind me in line and every Friday would say "20/20". I can remember Mrs. Fogarty showing us her bellydancing moves in dance class. I can remember learning how to draw the "Stussy" S with six little lines. I can remember girls shaving the bottom halves of their heads so that when their hair was down, you wouldn’t notice. I can remember only going to one social at Gaiser because I never understood the point of a school dance at 3 pm in the afternoon. I can remember telling my 5th grade teacher when I started my period and her telling me how proud of me she was. I can remember the first time I met Liz Harper. I can remember staying with Emily Stewart at her parent’s apartment while their new house was being built and we could go sit in the hottub. We’d talk about the boys we liked. I can remember the sticker a classmate had on her triangular shaped highlighter of the New Kids On the Block. It was the first I’d ever heard of them. I can remember going over to Emily Steidl’s house and we’d clean her room for fun. She had a goldfish named Abrahm Lincoln. I can remember going to stay at Megan Hill’s house and we’d always ask to watch the movie "BIG". We never got to the end before we had to go to bed. I can remember the first place I took tap dance lessons. The building had that old smell and we had to go to the front of the building, where some strange guy lived, to use the bathroom. I can remember having this thing about seeing bathrooms at every restaurant we went to. It drove my mom nuts.

I can remember kids who picked on me and kids who I picked on too. I can remember nights that I cried myself to sleep because I felt so small and so useless and pointless. I would try to remind myself that this wasn’t going to last forever; that some day, this would all be over and I’d be grown and be far far away from anyone who made me feel this way.

All in all, having a phenomenal memory is a good thing, something I cherish and value about myself. But it does sting when someone asks you if you can recall something for them, give them a specific situation when a particular thing may have happened (or something may have been said) and then for them to criticize you because you are able to remember it.