Tag: memory | A Banana Peeled

Tag Archives: memory

My memory is Swiss cheese (with reason)

Posted on May 18, 2025 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I have been trying to find my passport because–well, reasons. I had a dim memory of it being in my underwear drawer and thoroughly dug through it. It was not there. Then, I thought, maybe I put it in a different drawer? I checked all of them. Not there. Hm. Maybe my desk? I had a hazy memory of putting it in my desk drawer, ‘hidden’ in something. Nope. Not there, either. I checked all the drawers several times.

I thought about it for the next few days, and then it hit me. It was probably downstairs in the safe! I went downstairs, but the safe was not where it usually was. I was so puzzled until I remembered that my brother and I had put it in one of the many boxes on the floor (mostly filled with books). I opened all the boxes, rummaging through them. I could not find the safe. I went through all of them again, and I still could not find the safe.

I called my brother to ask him if he remembered putting the safe into one of the boxes. He said yes. He said we did not bury it in anything, either. I went back down to look yet again, but I could not find it.

I was so frustrated and mad as hell. Mostly at myself! I know that my memory is shit since my medical crisis. I’m not mad at losing my memory because it’s a trade-off I’m willing to make for regaining my life. Easy choice, right?

I compensate by writing shit down if I need to do something or be somewhere at some point in time. However, I have not trained my brain yet that I also need to write down shit like this. Though, to be fair to me, I hid my passport before the medical crisis.

I did know that I had a valid passport in 2018 when I went to Malta. I vaguely remembered that it was new, but I wasn’t sure about that. I hadn’t used it for several years before that, and it’s not something I have to think about in my day-to-day.

I was frustrated, but I didn’t think anything would be helped by me going through the boxes for a fourth time.

My brother was in the neighborhood tonight (kind of ), so he stopped by. I haven’t seen him in a hot sec because he’s been busy, busy, busy–which is his standard MO. We got to talking aabout my passport and my frustrations with not being able to find it. My brother being who he is said immediately, “Want to go look for it?”

Writing & aging don’t always mesh

Posted on May 27, 2019 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

I’m reading the second book of a trilogy I’m working on, and I noticed that I completely left out a scene that I had setup to write. It wasn’t a huge setup, but I was carefully making it seem to be something important. Then, I just…forgot about it? Got distracted? I’m not sure, but probably the latter because I had setup another important scene, and that one I actually wrote. I’m going to have to write the scene and make it seamless, and I have to have my character talk to another character whom I introduced and noted I had to talk to, but then never did.

It’s not like me to forget entire scenes and characters, and I think it’s because I’m getting old. I hate to admit it, but my memory ain’t what it used to be. In my heyday, I worked in a department that had five hundred people. I checked in people to training classes, which meant I met most of the people in the department as many of the training was mandatory. I only forgot the name of two people, and one was because she was perhaps the blandest person I’d ever met. I felt bad about it, but it’s still a pretty good track record.

I’ve been losing the lyrics from 80s songs, which I’m fine with. I don’t need them, and they take up way too much brain space. It’s disconcerting, though, because I’d been carrying them around with me for decades only to have them disappear. Not all of them and not even most of them, but some of them–and that’s weird enough. I know it’s human nature to lose your memory capabilities as you get older, but it’s disconcerting. My mom and i have had several discussions about this because my father is rapidly losing his memory. He’s always had a terrific memory as well, and now, it’s really bad in some areas. To complicate matters, he never remembered anything he didn’t want to remember. If he didn’t consider something important, it didn’t register in his brain. For example. He never went to any of my activities when I was a kid unless my mom made him. He never showed any interest in my life, and I doubt he knows anything personal about me except I like cats and the color black. In addition, when he was the president of an economic research company, he had an excellent secretary (they still use that word in Taiwan) who would print out his emails for him. That’s not all she did, but that’s the extent to which his helplessness was extended.