I remember being told in medical school that at least half of what I learned would be wrong in a few years.  Or something like that.  Certainly, medicine has changed dramatically, although the fundamental principle of “do no harm” continues to hold true.  The corollary they didn’t mention is that at least half of what I learned I would also forget.  If only the things that turned out to be wrong were the same things I would forget.

Earlier, life seemed to be an endless acquisition of information and experience.  More and more stuffed into my brain.  At some point, that balance seems to have tipped into forgetting more than remembering.

Earlier, life seemed to be an endless acquisition of information and experience.  More and more stuffed into my brain.  At some point, that balance seems to have tipped into forgetting more than remembering.

Milestones help.  At first, each new school year was like a new world, a new teacher, new class and people.  Later, memories became tied to when I lived here, or worked there, or was in a relationship with that person.

Those memories are often compartmentalized, not thought of for years until something opens the door.  A song, a smell, a picture, a situation.  A Retrospect prompt.   They await, “out of sight, out of mind”, until the light shines in.

I am grateful to repress bad and painful memories.  Not everyone is so fortunate.

Geographic moves in particular seem to cause life in the previous location to fade, as if the person I had been no longer existed. Immigrants know this.  Nonetheless, the bits of  life are connected like a series of railroad cars, each distinct but linked and somehow hurtling forward together.  When memory and I ramble through those lurching cars, it is hard to predict what I will find that I forgot.