The Mutability of Memory

I am my own unreliable narrator in the story of my life. Who can fact check my autobiography now that my parents are gone and my exes have disappeared? And even if any/all of those folks were still here, how could I trust their memory when I know my own is so undependable? My memory used to be fabulous, or so I believed. At least, it was fabulous for taking tests, for brute-force memorization of globs of text and notes in order to regurgitate them on exam day. My efforts were generally rewarded with super high grades, so I thought this was the way. Other people studied differently, received lower grades, but were able to retain more. Meh. Show me the report card! Usually, this information faded from my mind quickly, but scenes from my actual life, conversations with real people, events I had experienced in person... I could trust those memories to be accurate. Right?

Welp... not so much, it seems.

A couple months ago, I forgot the date of my elder daughter's wedding. I swore it was July 2018, but that was impossible because my granddaughter was one year old at the wedding, and she was newly born in June 2018. I had a clear memory of that date, but it turned out to be incorrect. This is a small example, but how do we know there aren't many other things that I swear I know... except I don't? I don't know what I don't know, obviously, but I suspect there's a vast mountain of stuff I believe to be true that isn't. This is extremely distressing.

Recently, my friend H forwarded an email exchange between us from 2016 and thought I might find it interesting to reread. I certainly did. In the old email, I was ranting passionately about stuff that was super important to me then, and not only isn't it important to me now, but I had completely forgotten it even existed! It completely freaked me out. It was like I was reading something from someone else, not me. But as I was reading my own words, I remembered caring so much about these things and having anxiety over them, which just goes to show you that most of the shit that upsets you today isn't going to be a blip on your radar screen years from now. Or months, as the case may be ~ the email was from February, and by October, I had a whole new pile of stuff giving me anxiety.

I replied: Second, it absolutely astonishes me how much I have forgotten about my own damn life. I mean, I have always said that I forget a lot of facts, news, movies, books, conversations, etc., that didn't have an emotional impact on me. They kinda slid right by, unlike other things that affected me on a deeper level and generated any kind of intense feeling... those got snagged on the coat hooks of my mind... or so I assumed. As it turns out, however, I also forgot a lot of this stuff too!

Yeah. Maybe it's a good thing. I don't know. It disturbs me though, since I view my "self" as not a soul (because that, imo, is a religious concept and requires belief in the supernatural), but as a collection of ideas, feelings, and memories. If some of my memories are incorrect or missing, then who am I?