Mind Your Own God Damn Business

I’m sick AGAIN. Awesome. That’s three times in two weeks. Nice. Today has actually been pretty cool if you ignore the fact that I’m beginning to wonder if I have AIDS.

I went and got coffee with a friend that I met back when I was a line cook a few weeks ago when I was sick with something else. It was fun to catch up with her. As goofy as that place was, there were some cool people there.

We chatted about what we’d been up to, and at one point started talking about music. When we did, she made some sort of comment about how she likes all kinds of music, although she’s sure that I would give her all kinds of shit for saying that. I asked her what she meant, and it turned out that at some point when we used to work together, I had asked her what kind of music she listens to, and she had told me that she listened to a little bit of everything.

As you know, I’m an unreasonable dick about this subject. and we apparently had the conversation that always ensues when someone tells me this: I accuse them of being a liar and tell them that “everything” always seems to mean that 95% of the time they listen to one genre and then cherry pick a few albums they like from other genres for the remaining 5%.

So, it turns out that I had this discussion with this girl a few years ago, and she had been pissed off at me for busting her chops about it ever since. I completely believe that it happened, because that is totally something that I would do, but I have absolutely no recollection of that conversation taking place.

Which made me realize that I need to quit spending so much time fretting about the past.

I originally started listening to podcasts to help me sleep. I would put them on while I was going to bed so I could focus on them until I passed out, because if I don’t have something to distract me while I’m dozing off, I spend three hours agonizing over every embarrassing moment in my life. A missed line in a school play from 10 years ago, or a humiliating moment in front of a girl I liked, or when I said something rude to someone because I was a stupid teenager. I have plenty of them, as everyone does, and I fixate on them when I’m trying to fall asleep.

I decided recently to get off my own nuts about stupid things that I’ve done in my past. Originally, I only had one reason, which was that unless I invent a time machine, there’s nothing I can do about those events, and stressing out about things that you can’t really control is a surefire way to end up having a stroke. It’s good to remember the stupid things that I’ve done in an attempt to keep from doing them again, but not to agonize over them.

The moment at the coffee shop made me realize something else, though: It’s also a waste of time to worry about those humiliating moments from my past, because it’s entirely possible that the other people involved in those events don’t even remember them happening. Furthermore, it’s entirely possible that I don’t remember the things that I HAVE done that other people remember and are pissed off about.

This is actually not the first time that someone has told me their most vivid memory of me and it’s something that I don’t remember at all. I met up to grab a beer with one of my old high school friends a month or two ago, and he told me about the time when we were in a Physics study group as Juniors in high school. We were there during lunch, and the teacher locked the door so he could go grab something to eat. I had to go to the bathroom, and I guess that I peed in a trash can and then threw the bag out of the third story window so I wouldn’t have to leave the room. Up until my friend reminded me of that story, I had completely forgotten about it…and, uh, I still have, because it never happened and I would never do something like that. You hear me, potential and current employers? IT NEVER FUCKING HAPPENED. But if I HAD, it would be interesting that one of my friend’s strongest memories of me from high school is something that I don’t even remember doing.

It’s kind of weird to think about – I assume that people have very clear, comprehensive memories of all of the details of their experiences, and so when two people interact, their opinions of each other are formed off of their complete and identical memories of all of those interactions, and that’s obviously not really the case. If you sat me and one of my friends down in separate rooms and told us to write down everything that we could remember about the time that we’d spent hanging out, how much overlap would there be? Probably more than 0%, but probably a lot less than I would expect, too. I’ve known my three closest friends for most of my life, and that’s a lot of time spent together doing stuff to remember, especially when you consider how hard it is for me to remember anything. And even if you do look at the points where we do overlap, I wonder how differently we interpret those events? I spent all of high school convinced that everyone hated me, and most of the people that I’ve spoken to since then either didn’t really have an opinion or seem to think that I was mostly okay. If they did hate me, it was because they thought I was kind of a jerk, not because I was pathetic.

It would also explain my last two serious relationships. I walked away from both of them feeling like I had been trying fairly hard to make things work but getting the obligatory “Dear Johnny, fuck you. Sincerely, your ex-girlfriend” from both of them after it was over anyway. It probably has less to do with them being assholes and just boils down to us selectively remembering different parts of the relationship. I remember cooking for her, fixing her flat tire in the rain, patiently (at first) letting her exclude me from plans so she could hang out with her ex without hurting his feelings and missing the Broncos 2008 season opener against their bitter division-rival Oakland Raiders to go on a walk with her because her roommate wanted to watch something else. She remembers that I always came over late, wouldn’t go camping, didn’t like her friends and refused to take a four day road trip with her and went to a party at my ex-girlfriend’s house instead.

The idea I find most interesting, though, is that there are probably people out there who’s entire perception of me is based on interactions that I don’t have any memory of, and vice-versa. I wonder how many people I’ve met that made a huge impact on me with some little thing that they said or did that they don’t even remember anymore?

It boggles the mind. The sick, NyQuil-addled mind.

One thing I seem to remember is that Clipse’s 2003 single “When Was The Last Time” kicks a lot of ass.

It appears that in this case, I have remembered the past with crystal clarity.