A secret I've never told anyone

I’m going to share a secret that, until last Friday, I’ve never said out loud to anyone.

When I was 5 years old, I had a long period when I was worried I was only dreaming. I guess it was the 5-year-old kid version of “We live in a simulation.” I spent all my time wondering if I was actually 17 ( I don’t know why this was the number I thought of, but I remember it clearly) and just dreaming back my life. I was worried I would wake up and miss everything that happened in between. My other massive fear was waking up and forgetting my life in this dream.

Have I confused you yet? Sorry

I must confess I was a little relieved when I turned 17. Even though I had mostly stopped believing it, it was always on my mind. But then, I woke up on March 23, 2017, and… I had missed nothing. I had forgotten nothing.

It was very relieving.

However, all this time I spent thinking of this is the secret to how I developed an excellent memory.

I was so scared to forget that I always paid ridiculous attention to everything.

I vividly remember the patterns of the rugs and floors in my great-grandmother’s house, where I haven’t been in years. I can tell you the exact date for things that happened 10 or 11 years ago because, at some point, I decided dates were important to remember. I remember the very first words in conversations with a new friend and the exact phrases people said when breaking up with me.

I’ve continued to remember my life in this way past 17: always fearing forgetting my own life.

Everyone is always surprised by how I can mention events and occurrences with dates, but I don’t remember anything accidentally. On the contrary, I am always actively trying to remember. And, of course, I don’t remember everything. But I do remember more about my life than the average person.

Sometimes, my memory is a blessing. Sometimes, it feels like a curse. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Now, why the hell am I telling you this? It’s not to brag. It’s to share how you can improve your memory too. I don’t know if this will be useful for exams. But it’s definitely useful for experiences.

And with time, I’ve learned to guide my mind to remember what I want and nearly forget what I want to ignore or what doesn’t seem necessary.

I want to teach you how I do it, hoping it will work for you too.

So let’s dive in!

1. Paying incredibly close attention

Wherever and whenever I am, I am looking for important things. I am looking for what I would like to remember and making mental notes on it. I’ll have thoughts like

• Oh, my friend looks beautiful. Let me try to remember their face at this moment

• That was a hilarious remark. I wanna remember it for a long time

• Man, it feels great to be sitting in the garden under the sky with my friend. I want to remember this feeling.

• Today was a life-changing day. I want to remember what day it was.

By paying this close attention, I find myself more able to remember my life. In this case, it’s all about intention: when I want to remember something, I say, “Brain, remember this.”

(again, this may not work for more “practical” things. If it did, I wouldn’t keep forgetting my errands. It works best when you remember something you have an emotional connection to)

2. Visual documentation

I love the camera on my phone. When I don’t trust my memory to remember how beautiful, funny, or memorable a moment is, I can always take out my phone and take a picture or video of it. And then, I have the extraordinary Google Photos to remind me of this day every year.

I also love my PaperShoot camera: a tiny digital camera that gives you the look and experience of an analog camera without waste. Gotta love an ecological and fun alternative.

Here are a few pictures I’ve captured with one of those:

3. Written documentation

You know I love writing (duh), but you may not know a big reason I started doing it (and why I keep doing it) is documentation.

When I started a journal for the first time, I had just read the Diary of Anne Frank. I was 12 and didn’t see a long life ahead of me, if you know what I mean. So I thought it would be essential to document who I was so that in case I didn’t last much longer, someone could remember me (I wish this sounded less depressing, but that’s how it was.)

My mental health improved with time, but the writing never stopped. Since then, I’ve filled over 18 notebooks with poems, notes, brain dumps, plans, reflections, dreams, etcetera.

Whenever I want to remember how I thought or what I was doing at any age between 12 and 23, I readily have that information in my notebooks.

So when my mind is not enough to hold all my memories, the paper never forgets. And if I died now, like I thought at 12, there would be a massive log of my life in those notebooks.

Writing by hand also reinforces the neural connections we have with those ideas. So just by writing my experiences and feelings down, my mind remembers them more easily.

Why would you want to remember?

Well, I have no clue why you want to remember. As for myself, I’ve had this fear of forgetting instilled in me since I was little.

But even more than that, vividly remembering specific experiences is learning material for me. Just like a child remembers not to touch the stove after he gets burned, I remember ways in which I’ve allowed myself to be hurt (and remember to not allow it again.) I remember what I was doing when my life felt better than it does now. I remember the people I loved and why I had to stop doing it.

If I didn’t remember my life so vividly, I think I’d repeat my mistakes a lot more often.

What about you? Why would you like to remember?

I hope your week feels like seeing the seed you’ve cared for so carefully sprout, like realizing you’re an adult and can choose your life now, like finishing a project that was months in the works.

See you next Wednesday!

-Vale, The Friendly Artist