A few weeks ago, as we scavenged through the fridge for a semblance of a meal, my roommate asked about my trip to Whole Foods. I paused, arm half-submerged in the cheese drawer. My first instinct was to tell her that I hadn’t been to Whole Foods in months, that I didn’t know what she was talking about, that I didn’t even know where the closest Whole Foods was. But just below the surface, I knew she was right.

“When did I go?”

“Right after you went to Spirit Halloween,” she said. I retraced my steps and followed the trail, snaking my way along my walk toward Fresh Pond, into Spirit Halloween, and stumbled eventually on the memory of entering Whole Foods.

That wasn’t the first time I’d been unable to recall a simple memory without external reminders. It started in fourth grade, and for a long time, I thought that foggy memories and gaps in time were normal for everyone.

In high school, I had a close friend who would come to my house nearly every day and stay for hours. I have no idea what we did with all that time — we probably tucked ourselves under blankets and watched shows, maybe tried to study. Sometimes, I’d start telling her a story and she’d cut me off and say “I know, I was there,” or “You already told me this.” The scariest moments were when she would reminisce about times we had spent together. When I told her I couldn’t remember, she’d open her Snapchat memories and pull up the event in question. I’d look at the glowing image of myself, terrified of the collection of pixels on the screen: a me who I couldn’t remember.

During AP Psychology, I finally learned words to describe what I was struggling with — repression and dissociation. Repression, the act of forcing memories from your conscious into your subconscious; dissociation, feeling disconnected from your thoughts, experiences, and actions. Sometimes when I’m in a dissociated state I feel like I’m floating; sometimes I feel like I’m controlling a video game character. Other times my arms get tingly, like they’re falling asleep, my eyes unfocus, and my brain feels like it’s wading through thick jelly. Most of the time it feels like I’m asleep, like each object around me is a simulation from my mind.

Repression doesn’t take away just the bad memories — it snatches the good from my grasp, too. I don’t remember first meeting my friends; I don’t remember how we got so close. I don’t even remember most of the time we have spent together. I’m left insecure and uncertain about the connections I have with people, or the lack thereof. Friends fade quickly from my list of priorities, simply because my own subconscious snubs my emotional connection to them.

By Margot E. Shang

I’ve begun to adjust my approach. I compensate for the absence of a memory with analysis, categorization, and interpretation. I can memorize a fact more easily than I can store a memory, so I’ve started identifying people by qualities rather than memories. Upon discovering each new mode of classification — the MBTI personality types, the enneagram, the Hogwarts Houses — I hound my friends and family for their results so I can understand them on a deeper level than I would otherwise.

My most recent discovery is the five love languages. With it at my disposal, I’ve taken my approach a step further, drawing on each individual’s love language to provide our relationship substance.

My mother’s love language is acts of service, which manifests most clearly in the food she cooks. She cuts fruit for us and arranges it on fancy little plates. She cooks dinner almost every night, with enough leftovers for lunch the next day. If you ask her to make you breakfast, or a snack, she will always say yes. For her, I learned to cook, gathering recipes from TikTok, Instagram, and Google. From YouTube, I learned how to make ramen and dumplings from scratch. I also had her teach me recipes she learned from her mother — Cuban pulled pork, arroz con pollo, black beans. I’ve carried them with me and made them for my friends.

My roommate’s love language is quality time. We have picnics next to the Charles, feasting on hauls of brie and bread from Trader Joe’s, strawberries, and macaroons. We wander our way up to Porter Square and stop in the record store to escape the weather. At night we sit side by side on the couch, scraping our bowls of ice cream clean. For her, I’ve learned how significant the simple act of going on a walk can be. And I’ve learned that silence is okay, that the nearness of someone you love can be enough.

By Margot E. Shang

My father’s love language is gift giving, but not in the typical store-bought manner. It usually manifests as a gift of experience — concerts, plays, family vacations. During winter break we go to a mountainous state in the west with snow and dry air and hot chocolate. At nighttime we scramble along the icy deck and dunk ourselves into the hot tub, and after a shower we rendezvous in the living room to play card games in our pajamas and make smores in the fireplace. We go to Michigan during the summer, and spend time among grass that is thin, long, and soft, rather than thick, stumpy, and coarse like in Florida. I’ve started writing him stories, pieces of my imagination he can keep with him. I wrap them up on special occasions, tucked into the gauze of an old shoe box.

My own love language must be words of affirmation, a reminder, when memories fail me, that someone cares. When I was little and sick, my feeble body heaving into a grocery bag, inhaling the plastic in deep lungfuls, my parents would hold a bucket to my lips and offer relief in the way of soothing words. After the times they’ve cut open my ears, or carved out my tonsils, or patched up my mouth, I would awake in a bleached room and my parents would whisper that they wished it was them instead, that they would take the burden from me if they could.

I’m obsessed with letters, beginning with birthday letters. I didn’t like most parts of birthday parties. After the main party events — the pool, swimsuits dripping onto cream tile, fingers worming through knobbly roots for discarded piñata candy — came the dreaded task of opening presents. I didn’t know how to act, unwrapping each gift in front of all those eyes. I delicately peeled the tape aside, to keep the paper intact, and forced out a smile and a laugh.

The letters made the awkwardness of it all worth it. After the party, I could never bring myself to throw them away, even the simplest store-bought cards. I would bring them in a stack to my room and reread them, sitting on my carpet. When I was finished, I would slip them into a ziplock bag and tuck them into my bookcase. Some of them I would tape up, onto my wall, and when I was feeling lonely or sad I would read them again.

***

When I was in middle school, we went to the United Kingdom. I can’t remember most of the trip, not enough to write a whole story about it, anyway. I can only remember fragments, which, when combined, make the trip look something like this:

We go for a walk on our first day in London when we’re fresh off the plane, jet lagged and unshowered. We drink tea in Wales on a cold, overcast day. I’m almost run over by a double decker bus in Edinburgh. My brother buys shortbread in a tourist shop. We hike a desolate hill in the Lake District, with cold cuts and crackers in our backpacks. When we reach the top, I try to wake up, to force myself to memorize the way the lake looks, sparkling far below us, with sailboats dotting the distant dock and a scattering of tiny islands in the center.

By Margot E. Shang

But I couldn’t snap out of the trance, not even for a place that vibrated in my head with its newness. I hope that one day I’ll wake up, that I’ll be able to relive the past like it’s a slide, continuous, slick, rather than a puzzle missing half its pieces. And maybe when I do, I’ll break my habit of substituting memories with words.

— Staff writer Jackie E. George can be reached at jacqueline.george@thecrimson.com and on Twitter at @jaackiieeeG. This is one of eight essays published as a part of FM’s 2020 “Synapse” feature, about gaps and how we fill them.