Memory

I can’t bring myself to describe the horror I felt when I woke up and didn’t recognize her laying next to me. She was as she always was and yet I was disoriented and confused and she was someone completely different. Blinking changed nothing. It was as though when my dream ended I was still in a world that couldn’t be wiped away by closing my eyes. For several seconds, I lived in staggered understanding, slowly gripping a reality that wanted nothing to do with me.

When I’m ancient and my mind begins to fail, I know that life will seem like this same ongoing tragedy. I hope that if nothing else, the first thing I forget is that this feeling is irregular; that there was, at a time, a comfort surrounding me. Forgetting the beauty of certainty would be devastating, but it might make the confusion easier to live with. Especially since life continues regardless.