The Disappointment Of Progress

I was just out for a walk with a friend. Writing music came up. Then the gaps in my memory became all too clear. Again.

xxxxx

Years ago, I never had any cause to doubt my memory. To grasp how life is now is to take hold of a fairly sharp double edged blade.

The Disappointment Of Progress

Today a friend told me about how I’d had to give up writing music when I was not long out of hospital. It – the software – had been too much for me to (re)learn.

(There is an entry about writing music again here.)

So now I have some background to why I’d stopped writing – which is a good thing. But why had I forgotten this?

On the one hand, it’s no big deal. We all forget stuff. But it’s more than that. It’s an illustration of how life is these days.

I imagine I’m making progress, that I’m ‘getting there’. Then something comes up to rub my sorry little nose in the reality of how far I still have to go.

I know. I know. I know. Yes, there’s been some change – progress, if you want to call it that. I’m still recovering – the recovery is active, ongoing. But when the damage catches me out, it still hurts.

Compounding it all there’s the horrible realisation that, precisely because I’m damaged, I can’t be sure I’m aware of how damaged I am; nor what the damage might actually mean for me. And yes, that’s a recurring realisation. I know that. But that doesn’t weaken its impact.

OK. So, in the early years I didn’t know much or feel much other than unfocussed frustration. And, thankfully, that was generally fleeting – even if it could be extraordinarily heartfelt. At least, frustration at some specific thing or another aside, for as long as I wasn’t aware of something that was wrong with me I wasn’t phased by it.

But now? Now I know that I don’t know. Now any trust I might have had in myself – misplaced as it may have been – is wholly undermined.

Fine. I understand that current reality. But it is very unsettling to be always treading on unsafe foundations.