Our Affliction or (Memory in Prospective)

George,

This is your father. I am writing to you when I am 25 years old, but, in some respects, I had been writing this letter since I was the age you will be when your mother and I will die, according to my journal. When I had first started writing this letter at age 5, I had correctly guessed that I would be writing this letter when I am much older. Despite this, I had made a few attempts at writing this letter earlier, but the words did not come then as they do now, just a few days after you’re born.

The reason I am writing this letter is to prepare you for the affliction that you and I have and to prepare you for the challenges that are ahead for you once your mother and I are gone. It’s possible that you’re seeing bits of this letter in your dreams or when you’re looking out the window during class.

There will come a point when you wake up one morning and not remember who you are, how old you are. You’ll wake up and think you’ve lived an entire life, laying on a hospital bed about to die of something you don’t fully know or understand. This will happen sometime before the accident, after you turn five. You will call your mother and she will comfort you as you explain to her what you saw in your ‘dream’. She will not know what this dream means, nor will she understand. At that point in time she will know that I have a memory problem, but not the other part. She will ask for what I think about your dream was about and I will be forced to say that I’m not sure. In the same way I’d tried writing the letter, I’ve tried to explain the affliction to your mother, but no matter what I try, she will never understand. There will be people in your life that won’t understand what you’re going through, and there will be nothing you can do to change that. The sooner you understand that—come to terms with it—the better off you’ll be.

The way I’ve explained our affliction, or the best way I’ve understood it, is that we have a type of global amnesia which prevents us from remembering up to a certain point in the past, but it allows us to look into the future. In past journals, I’ve recorded my efforts to find others similar to me but to no avail. There are more people that have amnesia than those with psychic abilities, much less both. As far as I know (maybe you’ll find otherwise) we are the only ones. I will guide you as best I can through what I’ve learned and I will make sure to leave this letter, and my past journals, to hopefully help you cope with and understand the affliction you and I share. I can only speak from what I’ve learned and experienced. So, as you read this letter take everything written here as a guideline, something to base your own experiences off of. Make adjustments and use what works for you.

The amount of what I can remember varies day to day. Sometimes I can remember things up to a year. Other times I’ll remember something for a day. Because of the varying gaps in memory I’ve relied on handwritten notes and journals to keep track of everything. In my experience is that there are 3 things that remain consistent no matter how old you are: Your name, Your eyes, and Your handwriting. It is important that you practice your handwriting as much as you can. As you practice, your mind will come to terms with what it looks like and it will become engrained into your memory. Along with your handwriting you should keep a journal. On each page you should write your name, your birthday, and how old you are. If you are a student, you should write down where you go and what you’re studying. If you have a job you should write down where you work and what your responsibilities are. Keeping this journal and writing notes to yourself will help you keep track of important details.

You will learn to trust your handwriting; through this you will learn to trust yourself. That’s how I’ve learned to trust myself.

My memory, our memories, will always be muddled and forever fleeting. Premonitions will stay with us forever. Something else that you will have to come to terms with.

The way memory works normally, a person has retrospective and prospective memory; memory of what a person has done and memory of what a person is going to do—intending to do—in the future. Retrospective memory relies on recalling past events while prospective memory is about anticipating events that have yet to occur. A person’s mind gives particular focus to their retrospective memory while their prospective memory works in the background. When recalling a memory, the person will remember details from the memory, bits and pieces that they recall for one reason or another that are fuzzy. When a person finally comes to remember what the memory is or where that piece comes from, the feeling is like having a light bulb flashing for a long time and then you turn the bulb in its socket and it comes on, shining bright.

Premonitions work the same, but the bits and pieces are already in your possession. You’ll have this constant sense of déjà vu everywhere you look. Things will start to line up, words that you’d been hearing, people you’ve been seeing in your mind all your life start appearing before you, and you’ll anticipate that something is going to happen, any second now. A coworker will talk to you and you’ll see a vision of them later in life. You’ll see an object in a room that you will see again and again. You’ll hold a woman’s hand and you’ll remember holding that same hand your wedding day. You’ll sit in the passenger seat of a vehicle and you’ll see the moments leading up to the accident that will one day kill you.

You will see deaths long before they happen, including yours. You’ll see them many times. Every detail. Every moment before it happens, you’ll feel an urge to say something, to tell someone what’s about to happen. This urge is normal and it will come every time you recognize a person or detail. When this happens, you need to keep in mind of your surroundings and no matter what you need to keep these things to yourself.

I want to stress that you cannot, nor should you try to, change the future. You’ll probably think it has something to do with changing the timeline and what not. That’s part of it, but there’s more to it than that. When you try to affect the outcome of something or change what’s supposed to happen, your body will fight against you. Your head will feel like it’s splitting open. The doctors will not know how to explain it other than to say that it’s a concussion. At the very least you’ll get sick and have to take medication. At its worst, if you do it for long enough, you’ll most likely die.

When you’re going through this letter and learning your condition there will be times when you’ll feel helpless and scared, like the world out there is not going to help you or understand you. Even now, at 25 years old, I still feel that everything is stacked against me. I want you to know that you are never, ever alone. Humans are dependent on the environment and people around them. As long as you surround yourself with the right people and settle in the right place, you will flourish, regardless of the circumstances that led you to where you are. Even when the people around you don’t understand, it doesn’t mean they don’t care. No matter what decisions you make; good, bad, whatever, there will always be someone out there who will care for you and love you with all their heart.

If nothing else, your mother will always love you. I will always love you.

Thomas J. Michaels