Very Short Memoir

I hate when my writing comes off as pretentious and predictable. I just had Kristina proof-read something I wrote for my creative writing class and I was almost too embarassed to show her. Problem is, I had to, since the piece I've been working on all week suddenly seems awful and useless and a waste of creative energy. This one isn't much better but at least it seems present, it's something I am feeling right now, and even if the rest of it sucks it is saved by its now-ness.

Here it is:

I don’t remember you. I don’t remember anything about us or how we were when we were together.

I want to scream this into the envelope and send it away. I want the confession to leak out of the clean white seal and pop in his face like a giant, wet bubble. Instead, I sit staring at the lined page in front of me. I recently moved to Utah, am in a new ward, and just gave a talk. There is a lot to write about.

I have become an expert at polite, vapid missionary letters. My Young Women’s leaders loved making us girls write to missionaries we didn’t know when we were growing up; I always thought it a banal and awkward practice. Now I feel like they were preparing me for a time when I had to pretend I knew someone, pretend the flow of letters was effortless and natural. They were preparing me for this.

Alex is a catch, for all I can tell. I have two pictures of us together; we’re smiling in one, making silly faces in the other. He looks like a man. I wonder how long it will be until I get used to the fact that now I date men, and leave behind the high school memories of boyfriends who look like just that: boys.

I looked tan and very thin in the photos. My hair was cut almost as short as his. Dark circles beneath my smiling eyes were the only signs of the chemical misfortunes occurring inches deeper into my skull. I was probably on my third day of no sleep. I averaged about five days at a time. On the night of day five I would collapse somewhere- a park, a car, in the arms of a stranger- and be unconscious between 20 and 30 hours.

At first I thought I remembered things about him. He was obsessed with Kurt Vonnegut and took his death very seriously. He taught me how to walk on ice (Grip with the toes, Brooke! Come on! Toes!), and he kissed like they did in black-and-white movies: so much passion they are practically just smashing their faces together. I loved that. Our letters back and forth began well; yet each new tiny Japanese envelope from him carried stories and memories that I just couldn’t place. Every anecdote and inside joke drew me further into a tiny, suffocating box of realization: he might as well have fallen in love with a stranger.

How do I respond to this? How do I explain that I was not with you those last three months? Will you understand? Will you want to start over? Can I apologize for things I can’t even remember doing? Can you remember for me? Please?