Things I may be remembering differently

Memory as both delicate and malleable

A few months ago I had lunch with a friend at a restaurant in One Bonifacio. I asked her, “Do you remember when we had dinner here after work one night pre-pandemic, and we talked for hours until the mall was about to close?”

She looked at me blankly. “Marley, I don’t think that was me. This is my first time coming here with you.”

“It was you,” I insisted. “I walked here from work to see you. We weren’t friends friends yet. Anton was waiting for me, or maybe I took a Grab home. We sat at this exact same table by the window. Remember?”

But she didn’t remember. Later that day I scrolled like a madwoman through our old conversations on Messenger, the only place we’d communicate with each other before we became comfortable enough to send random memes on IG DM or little check-ins on Telegram. I scrolled up, up, up, all the way past the early stages of our friendship until I got to the messages from the time we were merely acquaintances, just two girls who had their writing in common.

I couldn’t find anything about making plans to meet up at that restaurant. She was right. It wasn’t her.

I had other suspects but the list was short; the truth is there aren’t a lot of people I would have dinner with one on one, let alone talk to for hours until the mall closes. I asked a couple of other friends. None of them remembered.

Memory is such a delicate, malleable thing—both porcelain and clay. I often wonder about things I may be remembering differently, either because circumstances and emotions have changed with the cushion of hindsight, or simply because of the passing of time.

“Mum went through the windscreen and she lost an eye… I went looking for that eye. I don’t know why. I didn’t want anyone else to find it. I did find a tiny piece of the windscreen glass then. In my head it had blood on it but maybe that’s not true.” —All of Us Strangers, Andrew Haigh (2023)

An example: I am 22 and devastated, barely able to keep it together at work. I get a text from my parents telling me they’re outside my office and would like to take me out to lunch. They both liked the guy I had been kind of seeing (the word situationship had not been coined yet); we were friends from school and he was funny and sweet. I thought he liked me too until suddenly he didn’t. I sat there with my mom and dad, holding back tears and eating in silence. Compared to other families we weren’t very expressive, something I would only realize when I was much older and would observe my friends’ relationships with their parents. Towards the end of the meal they said something that made me decide I was going to be alright. I wish I remembered what it was. Sometimes I doubt myself if they even said anything at all, or if it was just the meal and the company and the love, mostly unspoken, that reassured me I would get through what I was going through.

These days I wonder not only about the things I may be remembering differently but about the things I’m forgetting: Names and faces. Entire plotlines of books and films that moved me. Things I liked as a kid. An old friend’s phone number. The street where the house she grew up in still stands. What her room looks like. Places I visited. Places that became parts of me. The sound of someone’s voice. All the fights I used to have with my husband when we were still dating, when we didn’t know whether it would all amount to anything. What it feels like to have my heart broken in my 20s. Or settle into love in my 30s. I’m forgetting even the cavernous whale’s insides of the pandemic, those bleak days that seemed like they would either shatter upon impact or stretch on forever (like memory—like porcelain, like clay).

“This is the photo my mother kept in her bedroom. When I was a kid, I thought that was my arm giving her daisies. Now I make a new mistake and I think it’s her arm giving me the daisies, saying, ‘here, here’s simple and happy, that’s what I meant to give you’.” —Beginners, Mike Mills (2010)

During my driving lessons this week, my instructor told me that once I’ve gotten the hang of it, I would completely forget how alien it felt at the start. Muscle memory would take over and I’d stop having to think about it so much. I suppose it’s the same for most things that are painful or daunting or overwhelming but ultimately worthwhile. To everything there is a learning curve, and once you’re over the curve it’s almost incomprehensible that you were once on the other side.

I know I’m forgetting some of the good things. But I’m forgetting some of the hard things, too.

And the things I remember differently? Maybe those narratives have shifted for a reason. Maybe at the end of the day, the story is the same, the shape of it familiar and true even if the details have rearranged themselves: I was there and now I’m here. On the other side. And, with any luck, I still have a long, twisted, glorious way to go.

I know it’s impossible to remember all of it correctly. But I hope I remember the meals and the company and the love. I’ll remember the table by the window. Talking for hours until it’s time to head home. It won’t be everything. But it will be enough.