Receiver of Memories

Have any of you out there read the book "The Giver"? I read it in middle school and it is about a kid in a fictional community and his given job is to be taught by an old man to receive people's memories. Some memories are pleasant while others are filled with pain. It is his job to store them in his mind, sort of a living library of people’s lives if you will. The reason I bring this up is because this is the way I feel most of the time. Although it can vary sometimes my memory is a very powerful thing, abnormal in every sense of the word. My inability to stop cataloging events as they happen to is both a blessing and a curse. The good and the bad, I remember it all. I sometimes get clarification of what happened, just to make sure of details, but I'm usually pretty sure of what went down. This applies to both sober and inebriated memories, many of each I had in college. I can remember something for you if you ask me to, sort of like a PDA.

My own pool of memories goes back to when I was about 2 or 3, with selected things coming earlier. I know this by asking my family about what happened and when, as research for my autobiography. I just wonder if there is a limit to how much I can recall as the years go on. Is this normal to not only remember but recall the state of mind I was in and how I perceived the world at that point in time about most of the things that happened in my life, as well as those I was a part of in terms of others I know? Some things do naturally fade, such as what I had for lunch that day or little things like that. It’s just that the more important things and a lot of random crap remains lodged in my head for what seems like eternity.

A good thing about this is that I tend to learn from my mistakes. So what do you all think. Am I a freak, or just lucky? Maybe it is a little of both.

In Plain Sight

Some of my friends are surprised to find out about me being an Aspy. I find it funny because the signs were right there in front of them. If only they had been looking for the right clues or knew they should be looking at all. True, they always could sense that there was something different about me, something they couldn't quite put their finger on; very much similar to how I felt growing up. I did a lot of things in plain sight that they might have noticed but shrugged off or didn't want to ask me about.

A lot of the times they asked me why I was so weird. I never seemed to respond the way they wanted me to. A couple of my college teammates knew because their parents told them. They kept it to themselves but didn't truly understand what it meant. They never brought it up and I never knew they had that knowledge until I told a couple of them. I thank them for their discretion. Some of them said I must be the best actor of all time to keep it hidden over my college years.

I learned a while ago the things that you can't tell people about yourself are the hardest things to keep. It is so obvious to you but they haven't a clue, and sometimes you just want them to understand. I refrained from telling people at my last job anything about it. I didn't want to deal with that. There were more than a couple moments when tell tale signs emerged and they thought it was something else that may have been on my mind. I'm sorry but there is no way they could have understood. I took enough crap while I was there and adding that would have forced me out sooner than I left.

I takes a lot out of you trying to blend in. I do a lot of things in plain sight but mostly when nobody is looking, at least I hope they're not. I just wish the world could give me more openings to be myself without looking at me odd for doing so. I don't really care what they think anymore anyway. Let them look.