mental posterity

I recently reconnected with a friend from third grade. REconnected is actually the wrong word since she doesn't remember me, a fact that I will take great joy in reminding her about for ... eternity. She suffers from self-diagnosed early-onset Alzheimer's. God love her; she'll be all of thirty next month.

I'll be thirty next week.

If you know me, you know it's no secret that I remember what you were wearing when I met you, how you smelled when I leaned in to hug you, what the weather was doing, the trill of your laugh, how we talked about your grandmother's health or the waiter that just served you or your cousin's Sunday school teacher's friend, the one with the blind dog. I'm a hoarder of memories, the queen of remember that one time?.

I'm not too proud to admit to having read and seen "The Notebook," and that combined with my reaction to it (bawling and begging myself to never get Alzheimer's) and Erin's (not-yet-confirmed-by-a-professional) disease, I've found myself wondering what would happen if I begin to forget.

...

Perhaps the nostalgia I've been experiencing as of late is directly related to this upcoming birthday, though I've never really been bent about birthdays. Perhaps it's a result of something else that I can't quite put a finger to.

I guess I can rest easy in the fact that the title of this blog could just as easily be "In Case I Get Alzheimer's," and hope that I never unlearn to read.