I Forgot to Remember: A Memoir of Amnesia (14 page)

As we walked for what seemed like miles, I remember it being very cold and windy, and both boys’ noses were running. Jim was all about finding the Ultimate Meck Family Christmas Tree. I was all about getting this over with so we could go home where it was warm. Jim was convinced that if we just kept looking, and walking just a little bit farther, we would find “our” tree. We eventually found what Jim was looking for, and he cut it down. Benjamin, of course, wanted to help with the ax and the saw and he ended up getting screamed at by Jim instead. Patrick was tired, cold, and whiny. The whole thing was quite the miserable adventure. Both boys fell asleep in their car seats while Jim was trying to tie the tree to the car, and we ended up not eating any of the special cutting-the-tree-down snacks we had prepared. Apparently, Jim remembered always having snacks
after
the tree was hunted and slain, and not
before
. He was upset that the boys and I hadn’t
appreciated this outing. I was upset because I hadn’t seen the point of this outing.

I still needed routine desperately and I missed the aerobics classes that I had taken in Texas. So Jim and I joined Merritt Athletic Club, a fitness facility not too far from Jim’s office. I made almost daily trips to that club and was noticed by Brenda Miller, the aerobics coordinator. She ultimately offered me a job teaching classes to the “Mom set” most mornings. I recently found an old VHS tape of me teaching one of those classes, wearing black Lycra shorts with a wide belt, a white jog bra, and thick white socks with high-top aerobics sneakers. My hair, which I seem to use as a prop, is long and curly, thanks to an early-nineties-era spiral perm.

I don’t remember too much about teaching at Merritt. But I do recall a distinct feeling of satisfaction that I had being an aerobics instructor. Finally, I could help out financially, at least a little bit, and also feel like there was more to my life than being a wife and mother. Brenda Miller also started a dance team, Muscles in Motion, and I was thrilled when she asked me to be part of it.

It was while living in Bel Air, and teaching at Merritt, that I think I actively began to watch and listen to what other people did and said. Before this time, what I did was utterly instinctive. Now, after observing, I began to mimic (exactly) how different people in different situations acted. Most, if not all, of the time I didn’t understand why people behaved certain ways in different circumstances, but that didn’t matter to me. My number one goal was to fit in. I never wanted to say or do anything stupid. I rarely did anything because I thought it was the right thing to do; I just acted, literally, like those around me, whether at church, at the gym, at social gatherings, at the library, at the playground, or with other neighbors. I mimicked movements, activities, gestures, speech
patterns, and facial expressions. If all the mothers at the park were sitting with their legs crossed and flipping through magazines, I would cross my legs and flip through a magazine. If people in church were standing and singing a hymn, I would stand with my hymnal opened and pretend to sing the same hymn. It took me years to learn how to read, so I could barely follow along with the bulletin or the hymnal during services. In choir, I listened intently and paid attention during the rehearsals to the words and tunes of our music. I would then try to either follow along or memorize as much as I could. It was quite a few years before I realized the word
alleluia
wasn’t
alligator,
and
amen
wasn’t
a man,
and
let us pray
wasn’t
lettuce rain.

I also had dozens of my own made-up words and phrases that I used. My brother Rob recently reminded me of two of these that he explicitly remembers: “Long-end days” were what I called the weekend, as in: When
the long-end days
get here, we are going to go and visit Mom and Dad. And “real art” was how I referred to photographs, as in: I am going to pick up the
real art
from MotoPhoto this afternoon.

Over the years, I have taken “blending in” to an Olympic-class level. This need I have to conform has taken its toll on me and has led to quite the exhausting existence. In Texas, Jim says that our friends had treated me as if I was suddenly mentally retarded. When we moved east, I was treated, at least I thought, as if I belonged. Except I didn’t, and I was the only one who knew the truth. As hard as I worked to fit in, one would think that I would be happy that I seemed to be succeeding. But the pressure was
always
on, and I was extremely self-conscious. I could never really relax and be
me
because I didn’t know who that was. Who exactly was I supposed to be? It was almost like the “What Would Jesus Do?”
expression that was popular a few years ago, except I was constantly asking myself “What Would Su Do?” Because I honestly didn’t know how to think for myself. I just knew how to parrot others. I had no understanding or appreciation of why people did what they did. Or was
everybody
going through motions just like I was? I didn’t think so.

For example, I was expected to attend the occasional social gathering with people from Jim’s office. I hated going to those senseless functions. They were full of all these power people, with all of their college degrees and PhDs, with important jobs and important lives. All the women knew how to dress perfectly and how do their hair and makeup just so. Nobody ever taught me how to do stuff like that. I felt totally intimidated! I sensed I was like a four- or five-year-old surrounded by grown-ups. I didn’t fit in at all with these people no matter how hard I tried to imitate them. Often I would throw up while getting ready because I was so nervous and uncomfortable about going. And then Jim would get so pissed off at me.

He says now that he had no idea what I was going through. He never understood my reluctance. So our social life just became another source of anxiety and tension between the two of us. All Jim wanted was a bit of what we had before, “to go out and do things like we used to do.” Except I didn’t know what we used to do, and I was terrified of these social situations. I was also scared of being separated from Jim at these parties. I never knew what to say. The whole chitchatting thing was beyond me. Women would gather in the kitchen and talk about their high-pressure jobs, their exotic vacations, what a pain in the ass it was to find a good au pair for their kids that they hated. I never had anything to contribute, so I awkwardly stood around watching the clock and wishing time
would go faster so Jim would come and find me and we could just go home. But as afraid as I was to go to these get-togethers, I was more frightened of provoking Jim’s anger if I stood my ground and refused to go. There were times when he wouldn’t forgive or talk to me for weeks if I did that. Jim wanted to act as if everything was back to normal. As part of the pact that we had seemingly made with each other to not talk about my injury with friends, neighbors, and Jim’s coworkers, we also apparently stopped talking to each other.

—Meatloaf

W
e had been living in Bel Air for almost a year when Benjamin started going to preschool. What I remember most about his preschool classroom was the strawberry wallpaper. Benjamin says he vividly remembers that wallpaper, too. Once, when the teachers weren’t looking, he went over to the wallpaper, utterly convinced that when he scratched it, it would smell like strawberries, because of a scratch-and-sniff book we had read. Did I have the same urge? Who knows? I was more peer than parent to Patrick and Benjamin, both mentally and emotionally. I was filled with the same awe and wonder that they had about many aspects of the world.

Unfortunately, Benjamin’s strong, take-no-prisoners personality became a disadvantage as he started preschool, and it continued to be a liability throughout his school years. Early on he was put on a kind of preschool probation. There were these little yellow tags he would get at the end of each day labeled with the numbers one through five. Whatever number was circled represented how he had behaved that day. I think there was also a kind of incentive system built into the yellow tags. So if he got a certain number of “fives” during the week, he was allowed to pick a sticker to take home on Friday. I remember thinking it was strange, and I was unsure as to what my role was with regard to these little yellow tags. I didn’t know that I was supposed to talk to him about his behavior or discipline him somehow. I honestly don’t think that Benjamin was a bad kid. The whole concept that he was somehow inferior to the teacher, I am convinced, was a bit baffling to him. When he was at home with Patrick and me, there was an awful lot expected of him, but with all of those expectations came a certain amount of freedom. I depended on Benjamin to a certain extent to know what to do and when to do it. At school, that responsibility was mysteriously taken away from him, and the teacher, instead, got to pick what to do and when to do it. Most days Benjamin must have thought the four-year-old’s version of “Screw it! I feel like going outside on the playground now, and I could care less about sitting here quietly listening to you talk about the days of the week!”

Moreover, I didn’t know too much about discipline, reverse psychology, or time-outs because I didn’t remember being parented myself. Every day was a brand-new day to the boys and me. If there was a “rule” at home one day that stipulated “all books back on the bookshelf after bedtime reading,” that rule would be totally forgotten by the next evening, when all three of us would
fall asleep in the top bunk with a dozen or more books scattered about. If the boys got in serious trouble one day for walking into the house from the backyard with muddy boots on, the next time they wore their muddy boots in the house, I might not even notice. Benjamin says of that time: “Patrick and I were able to do pretty much what we wanted. Almost all of our free time when we were little was spent together. We played outside a lot and did all kinds of dangerous stuff. We would get into the most apocalyptic fights. Patrick was always willing to take it further than I was.” And then: “If it got to the point where you wanted to put your foot down, there would be no discussion. All of a sudden, out of the blue, ‘You can’t do that!’ We both knew there was no recourse at that point.” I was unpredictable and inconsistent when it came to parenting, and I am certain that it was confusing as hell to my kids when everything appeared to be so out of control.

However, I excelled at routine. Schedules and regimens became my saving grace. Benjamin remembers that I “was in charge of meals and the house. Anything that we did on a regular basis, you were awesome at! That’s how you built up your repertoire of ‘mommying.’ Like the procedure of getting us up in the morning, for example. Every moment of the morning was scheduled, consistent, and enforced. We’d get up, get dressed, make our beds, come down and eat breakfast, then wash up and brush our teeth, and be out the door. There was a certain point every night that the kitchen would ‘close.’ We weren’t even allowed to go into the kitchen! Looking back I see that stuff that was routine was the only stuff that really made any sense to you.”

This very scheduled, and yet at the same time chaotic, household must have been confusing for Patrick most of the time as well. There is a family story that is told that illustrates this point nicely.
When Patrick was three, he would often just stare at me earnestly if I asked him to crawl up into his car seat.