It’s My Life

Living with memory issues since a young age has been akin to navigating a complex jazz composition: In some instances, relations are concordant, more frequently – contradictory, and always intriguing and complex. I would sort of describe the situation in which you assemble a grand orchestra with all musicians holding their instruments, waiting for the conductor’s signal to begin the concert, but you forget the notes on the music score. This has been my existence – being surrounded by music, yet losing the song that played in my head to mere fragments of the tune and beat.

Discussing personal matters is not such an interest of mine because I find it difficult, at least a little egoistical, and, I believe, impartiality is lost in the process. Vocal Media stands as the first time of my attempt to articulate deep thoughts; and, every time the memory of it comes up, the need to delete it intensifies. I am striving diligently to overcome this obstacle. For on the realm of memory, I reside in an oddity, the eighth note of music – the quaver, the beat that is not often mentioned, the drum in the background. It is as if the musicians were performing on stage, and while in the middle of it, they feel the rhythm that follows the performance of a song, but they do not know the next chord. Memories, like musical phases, swirl around me: Some of them come out clear like a trumpet sound while others are as distant and confusing as the sound of a saxophone in the dead of the night.

I have come to a decision. From today and forward, apart from sheets of paper, my diary will be public. While we should not allow terrible experiences to deny oneself the right to enjoy one’s life, there are some taboo actions I have been through, which may turn into a valuable life lesson to others. Clearly, adapting it to your situation. Therefore, I am contemplating the release of a small part of my daily concept of utmost confidentiality. But if this particular experiment does not work, I can only at least be sure that I had not wrong ideas in my head, that my thoughts are pure and my intention good.

For the entire period, I have experienced episodes of fractures, where continuity is ruptured, and the script of my life stalls for the next episode. These are arbitrary times that throw off the rhythm and harmony of my day to day activities. But in an orchestra, when one is constantly looking back at the conductor yet the conductor’s baton has disappeared, it is a struggle to get the beat right in the middle of carrying a cup of coffee.

Personally, as a musician, this message is rather significant and even bitter. For many, it might be a sport or other activities, for me, music is my therapy, my form of communication, and my source of income. However, there are moments, when I grab my instrument, it can be a piano or guitar, and the familiar scales look like I am attempting to play the notes that I have written for the first time. It is the same as if whenever I have to begin composing a track, I have to somehow learn the notes from scratch even though before I knew them by heart and was able to play them fluently. Worst cases, which have happened before, I have had completely forgotten how to play instruments, and that is why I do not develop expertise in any of them.

This is not a one-off experience represented in relation to music alone. In the choir of faces, they are indistinguishable as the notes on a sheet of paper and in a human orchestra, I forget the names as I forget the tunes. Friends close one’s eyes, familiar faces disappear, and the words one used to hear dissolve into noise of distant echoes that are sometimes rescued through writings. And everything comes back little by little after hours of confusion.

But so too has it taught me perseverance — perseverance in the face of the unknown, in the face of things like did I take my medication, did I feed the cats, was I meal prepping for the next day. To a certain extent, like a jazz musician who plays through changes, that is, when one’s skill is tested through the unfamiliar parts of the music, I have been able to change, to find new harmonies when the dissonance seems almost ready to knock me off balance. Every failure transforms into a possibility to reconsider, and new motifs to include into the picture of one’s existence.

But, besides the difficulties I described, there is a sort of loneliness that exists in having a condition that no one wants to talk about. Memory problems, and it seems that if started at a young age, neurological disorders of memory, their specifics, or their existence in general, are overshadowed by the loud voice of greater attention. Attention to go unnoticed. Because with fear of recognition, I always excused my problems and missed work through blaming asthma. Which I also suffer from. It is similar to being a pianist with their fingers hovering over the keys waiting for the right chord and at the same time the audience watching and waiting for perfection.

Thus, in this orchestra, I go on keeping my place – erring sometimes, and at other times, lingering in grace-notes. Every day is a different dance thus the obstacles are simply different notes in a melody. And in all of it – between certainty and uncertainty – I attempt to create a cohesive story that rises above the fog of memory – a sonata of hope, adaptation, and the power to withstand.

♡ Thank You For Reading ♡