Begin

You know that dazed feeling you sometimes get right after you wake up — that split second of “Where am I? What is going on?”

That has become an ever-increasing part of my waking life. It did not crash in all at once. It seeped in slow, almost polite, and now it touches everything.

I have always been proud of my memory. It was never just a skill, it was part of who I was.

Now I find myself losing the easy things. Names of old friends I have known for years. Stories my daughter shared with me, even the ones that made me laugh just the day before. Movies I have watched more times than I can count l, now blurry, like bad reception on a TV screen.

Sometimes it is worse than forgetting facts. Sometimes I lose the thread of conversations while I am still standing in them. Sometimes a song will play, and I will feel the emotion stir, but the reason behind it, the memory, stays just out of reach.

My mom died back in August.

I forget sometimes. I will be sitting there thinking about her, feeling like I should call her, hearing her voice so clear in my mind, and then I will check my notes, and remember she is gone.

And just like that, the grief comes rushing back, as sharp and raw as the day I lost her.

It is not just details slipping away. It is pieces of my life, pieces of myself, going quiet.

I have decided to start documenting this part of my life. To give some understanding to the people around me. And maybe, to offer a hand to anyone else who is struggling with the same lonely, invisible battle.

You are not alone. Neither am I.