I think it’s all a matter a love; the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it becomes. –Vladimir Nabokov

Ever since I was little, I have been able to remember things. And I don’t mean in the sense that I did well on tests or remember cute little sayings my mom would whisper in my ear. I don’t mean that I remember things in a way that’s sort of typical; for example, I remember that in Maryland, my first grade teacher’s name was Mrs. Hoyer and her husband was a scientist. Once she told us this story about how he was testing mosquitoes that he kept locked in a cage; he would dip one arm in first and then the other, allowing all these rabid, wild mosquitoes to just eat him for lunch. I don’t mean that I can remember what she looked like, how she wasn’t much taller than I was with white hair and glasses.

 

I’m referring to all those other things that are weird connections, things that I ordinarily might not remember unless something really reminded me of it. I’m speaking about things that lie dormant in my brain until I see a swatch of fabric, smell something familiar and fragrant, or hear a song that instantly brings me back a few years. For example, that same year, when I was five and still living in Maryland, I remember that I ran up to some random woman who was picking up her child from my class. I hugged her so tight and just buried my face into her waist. She had that same denim jacket my mom had and I remember when I looked up at her, I was so confused about what I had just done. Until I turned and saw that my mom was crouched at the end of the hall calling out to me, “Over here, Katie!”

The adult me would have been like, “Oh doi, there’s my mom. My bad, you guys just have the same taste in denim,” but the child version of myself remembers it so vividly. It sounds so crazy but it was a scary moment. For a second I felt unsafe out of the scope of my mother’s warm grasp. I couldn’t believe I had fallen into the arms of this foreign woman who didn’t even hug me back. Seems kind of rude, now that I’m looking at it as an adult. 

I always really believed in certain things triggering your memory. They say that when you lose someone, when you break off a semi-serious relationship or lose touch with someone you were once close with, everything reminds you of them. You hear a song on the radio and immediately you’re taken back to the first time you heard it with them, to the comments they made about how they felt about the song, and the feeling of excitement you felt in your tummy because you were sitting so close. You can walk into a deli and hear someone order a sandwich and suddenly you’re transported back to a different year, a different time when you were a different person. It seems so surreal when you think about it but state-dependent memory is a phenomenon for a reason. 

Sometimes I feel like dreaming is a part of this phenomenon as well. For example, last night I had a dream that one of my friends just showed up at my house, drunk and out of sorts, fighting with his girlfriend of many years and waking up the whole neighborhood. Obviously, this is never behavior that my friend would partake in because he’s a gentleman but the whole thing got me to thinking because their relationship is sort of dissolving at the moment. But the dream, which sort of spiraled me into this world of remembrance, got me to thinking about all the things he’s told me, about all the shenanigans she has pulled in their relationship, and about how happy I am that he’s moving on from all of it. It’s almost like, whether it’s a dream sequence or otherwise, I need to be thrown back into the situation in order to properly understand it. 

And while recollection can be nostalgic and a tool used for reflection, it can also be anxiety provoking. Sometimes falling deep back into something that you’ve long since forgotten about can cause feelings you didn’t even know you were capable of understanding. It’s so easy to go from being completely upbeat and positive to gut wrenched and uncomfortable because you drank too much and had a flashback or because someone mentioned something that made you think of your awful ex-boyfriend. It’s sort of like those people in the sixties that did LSD; one minute, they’re fine and having a conversation about their choice of vehicle. The next moment, they crack their back and have an LSD flashback about the Vietnam war.

And I’ve also read that this whole phenomenon extends as far as your learning capacities. One time, a woman even told me that statistically, I would do better on a test if I wore the same perfume I wore when I studied. That’s why this whole state-dependent memory theory really sort of grabbed my attention. If all you have to do is get back to the state you were in when the event happened, how are you supposed to genuinely protect yourself? How are you supposed to command any sort of control over your own life? Over your own body?

Our memory is a more perfect world than the universe: it gives back life to those who no longer exist. –Guy DeMaupassant 

Sometimes I think that staying locked up in your own head is a good thing. I mean, after all, it certainly keeps you safe from the outside world. Maybe exploring things within the security of your own mind allows for you to really filter through them before they’re presented to the outside world. I guess you could consider it something like an editing process, a way for you to really ensure things are exactly the way you want them. Maybe I’m partial to this brand of living because I’ve always been a little bit of an introvert. Sure, I love people and I love to socialize but sometimes, things are just clearer in my own mind. I’m able to process thoroughly (sometimes to death, as my husband would say) without any outside influence.

But I have to say that sometimes, I get trapped in this state-dependent memory world. I’ll drive by restaurants and think about the last time I was there. I’ll hear a song on the radio and I’ll almost take offense to it, as if Pandora somehow did this to me on purpose. I’ll hear a joke or political comment and suddenly, I’m right back in the blue Chevy truck, listening to my ex-boyfriend talk about politics as if he knows anything. If I’m at a state fair or some equivalent and can smell that artery hardening frying oil, I’m back at the Chasco Fiesta that time I had a face to face argument with my other ex-boyfriend. And to be honest, even though one of our mutual friends tried to make me feel better by telling me I had awesome eyes right afterward, I still felt terrible about all of that. I still do, to this day. And just like that, I’m back in those size zero jeans, squinting in the sun and trying to dodge all the people I seemingly intentionally hurt. 

Your memory can be a cruel mistress.

I just feel like all of this can go beyond a psychological term. I mean, especially in romantic situations, it’s easy to slip back into an old routine. Maybe you’re with someone for a long time and after a while, you start to realize that maybe your significant other is taking advantage of you. So you get sick of it, once the realization hits you, and you tell him to pack his things and go. But then, after another while, you start to think that maybe you miss him, that maybe some of his problems were correctable, that maybe you would rather stay with someone whose problems you can recognize rather than start over with someone new.

I have a friend who was in a situation just like the one mentioned above. And honestly, I can’t speak on exactly how she felt because only she knows that. What I can tell you is what I observed. (You will learn, friends, that social work is all about observation. And documentation.)

Essentially their relationship was cyclic; they were on this chronic up and down emotional rollercoaster. One moment, he was giving her a promise ring, claiming that he would propose to her within the year if that’s really what she wanted. They were doing things together, going on trips out of state together, bundling up together beside a ski lift for a romantic photo. They eventually moved in together, which I think sort of shocked all of us because of this lingering pattern they seemed to have (or more accurately, the pattern that he seemed to have) but for a while they made it work. I was happy for them because although I had my own reservations about the way he treated her, he was momentarily behaving himself. And this seemed to be what she genuinely wanted. Who was I to judge?

But then it was like he fell back into his weird, old groove. He started to become really selfish and distant. He left her at home for all hours of the day and night and pitched a fit whenever she would politely ask him where he was. Because she cared about him, because she obviously loved him, she didn’t want to stifle him. She didn’t want to be his mother; she just wanted to be privy of his life. She wanted to be a priority, she wanted to be important, and she wanted to have an actual relationship with this man that she had just signed a lease with. And quite frankly, after something like five or so years, I think she was pretty goddamn worthy of it. It wasn’t like she was asking for all that much.

But some crazy how, like always, he got a burr in his saddle. (That’s one of those aforementioned cute little phrases my mother would whisper in my ear.) Maybe it was just because he was selfish and because he had grown up in what we now label a “broken home”, he never learned how to be completely honest and respectful with his significant other. (And this seems to be a legitimate thing to note here because I don’t think he was faithful in any of his serious relationships, as far as I’m aware. And I’m not being slanderous; I’m just pointing out the facts.) Maybe he thought that she was taking over his life, now that they shared an entire apartment unit together, and felt like he had no escape other than to not be there. But in all honesty, and in my very humble professional opinion, I don’t think it was any of that. 

It was that goddamn state-dependent memory. 

People have an annoying habit of remembering things they shouldn’t. –Christopher Paolini, Eragon

Sure, it could have been that he was a compulsive liar and cheater that just couldn’t respect his beautiful girlfriend enough to at least try and stay faithful. Sure, it could have been that he felt like his prior decision to move in with said beautiful girlfriend had suddenly become a drag, something that he deemed as work, and something that was quickly beginning to take away from his active social life. Sure, he had probably soon realized that it would be a lot more difficult to hide his childish games from said beautiful girlfriend when she was always around. And sure, if I were to give him the benefit of the doubt (which he totally doesn’t deserve), I’m sure she wasn’t perfect, I’m sure she had done a few things to get on his nerves, and I’m sure she was always whining about how he was never around to spend time with her but you know what my response to that is?

That’s what happens in relationships. That’s what happens when you live with people. That’s what happens when you grow up, move out of your dad’s house, and decide to actually live like a grown up. It’s not all racy lingerie and custom lowered Dodge Challengers. You take the bad with the good, the ups with downs, and you don’t sext with other girls behind your faithful girlfriend’s back. But again, who am I to judge? (Ugh, he makes me physically ill. She deserves so much better and believe me, friends, I could totally go on for actual days about this. But I digress. We’ve all got raviolis to eat.)

The point is, and I’ve seen this many times, it was like he just slipped back into a different time zone. It was like she had said something or done something that made him revert back to the idiot he used to be. And that isn’t to say that she’s to blame or that she brought it on herself but one of his biggest complaints was that they were in a rut, that they didn’t really do things together, that she was more of a [mature] homebody who didn’t need to go out every night and get wasted. (Geez, I know. God forbid, what a lady, right? I can’t even believe the audacity of this woman to act like an adult in her relationship…) Maybe it was within this alleged rut that he slipped. 

Maybe when she was pleading with him to spend time with her, to take her to fun, eclectic places like the outdoor market on a Saturday morning, he was hearing something different. When she was saying, “I love you; I want to spend time with you besides brushing my teeth while you’re showering for work,” maybe what he heard was, “Lockdown. No more women except for this one. Big boy life.” And the last time and every time before they’ve had this argument, there was always some Amazon-sized hooker there waiting in the wings to comfort him. Maybe it was just natural for him to immediately fall into that position where he was up against the wall, where he had been caught doing things he shouldn’t have, and where he saw no way out but through the front door.

Maybe in a way, it was a state-dependent memory. Maybe the only way for him to really remember who he was as an individual was to go back to being that cheating, lothario asshole. And while all of this sounds great on paper (unless you’re him), no one can really be sure why he acts the way he does. But to be honest, I’ve seen a lot in my thirty years, especially in regard to men, and I have never seen such flagrant disregard for an individual that you’re supposed to be in love with. 

Except maybe once.

Moral of the Crazy: For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet (and that would be an insult to my writing, not to you lovely, loyal readers), state-dependent memory is applicable to individuals who are able to better recall memories when they’re in the same state they were in when the memory occurred. I’ve also heard that the olfactory sense has an enormous amount of influence on one’s memory and that I know to be true. (Remember that scene in Someone Like You where Ashley Judd’s character is at the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor requesting to have her “erotic nose brain” removed so that she can properly move on from her break-up? These things are almost certainly connected, I’m telling you.)

For example, right now, in my office, I’m sitting here in my cubicle minding my own business but someone had to go and heat up their lunch. This presents a problem for me because whoever it was and whatever they’ve chosen to heat up for lunch, it smells like a nursing home. Immediately, when that scent filters through my nostrils, I start thinking about how my grandmother was in a nursing home. I can still remember the smell of the food they served those poor individuals forced to reside there. There is something about that smell that to this day just makes me so uncomfortable. 

Then I start thinking about how my mom used to commute back and forth, from Maryland to where the nursing home was in Indiana, and how she got pulled over once for speeding and I wasn’t in a car seat. (Again, I can’t judge; it was the 80’s.) I start thinking about how messed up that nursing home was, how my mother still gets teary eyed when she talks about those times, and how my uncle had to bribe someone to speak out against those monsters with a gun and a bus ticket out of town. I start thinking about all the ways that incident indirectly affected my life and how it changed my thought processes on a lot of things when I got older. The same could be said with my mother, although in her case, I don’t know that she was ever the same after all of that.

Then I start remembering all the other little pieces to the story. My mother’s attorney that defended her family against the nursing home’s despicable acts was in a wheel chair. My grandfather got sick shortly after this and passed away on the hospital examining table. To this day they’ll never know what his cause of death was. The funeral for my grandmother that my mother attended by herself not too long afterward and how terrible her uncle was to her because he was old, bitter and angry. And how my dad stayed home taking care of my sister and I, allowing us to soak up the sun and be unaware of all the drama that was going on. How my parents always kept us at a safe distance from all of their various woes. 

To this day, despite all my memories, I really only know bits and pieces. That’s all they ever gave us. They preferred our childhoods to be sweet and sunny.

And all of this because of someone’s stupid lunch. All of this because I allowed myself to embrace those old feelings, those things I felt the last time I smelled such pungent food.

But there’s more to it than that. Sometimes state-dependent memory can be best described using alcohol. For example, if you were to get so intoxicated that you were nearly black out drunk and something crazy happened to you, the theory is that the only way you’d accurately remember what happened is if you got that same level of black out drunk. Now whether or not that exact phenomenon is true is unknown to me but I have to tell you, I have seen stranger things. I guess that it’s something you could test and figure out for yourself, if you’re up to it.

And I know the experts say that things like fatty and processed foods can contribute to memory loss, and things like blueberries and other foods with antioxidants can help to mend your weary, withered brain. I’ve more than read about the decline, the things to look out for in regards to Alzheimer’s, and things that you should stay away from to protect your one and only brain. I just feel like, and feel free to call me crazy but, all these things are connected. 

Maybe bad behavior isn’t something that we can entirely control. I mean, in some cases of serial killers and other really violent criminals, there is actually some brand of deformity in their brain. People are always talking about “mind over matter” and how “discomfort is just a state of mind”. People are always saying things like “maintain a positive attitude” and “pain is alleviated with simple mind control”. I mean, what if these people, like my friend’s asshole ex-boyfriend, can’t actually control their likelihood to slip into that mirage of state-dependent memory? What if they’re just doing what they’re brain tells them to do? What if they don’t have that strong sense of discipline to avert their mind in the other direction?

I’ve always been an advocate who supports making your own decisions and then standing by them. I’ve always felt that no matter what you choose to do, whether it’s good or bad, you should be held accountable because no one made that decision for you. In the case of state-dependent memory, I can’t decide if an individual should be held responsible for the mistakes they’ve made while under the influence of their own cracked, tattered memories. I can’t decide if it’s almost like a comatose state of being or just a passing thought meant for the use of reflection. 

Regardless, I’ve always been fascinated by the propensity to really regress for a moment to remember. I mean, that’s really what life is all about, right? It’s all a sweet cycle of passing things on to your children, things that you remember your mother did for you. Or maybe in some cases, doing the exact opposite of what your mother did because you know how painful it was for you as a child. All of this is so that those children, in turn, can pass what they’ve learned onto the next generation of fabulous little offspring. I mean, if you aren’t comforted by these things, if you aren’t stopped in your tracks by the smell of garlic browning in olive oil or for those non-Italian families, maybe the smell of some sugar cookies baking, what have you gotten out of life?

Do you know why I remember that time I ran up to the wrong women in first grade so vividly? It wasn’t because of the jacket or the classroom or some other tiny detail that caught my five-year-old attention. It’s because I remembered that woman didn’t hug me back. She didn’t grasp me in this warm, almost too tight hug because she was so excited to see me. She didn’t kiss me a bunch of times and ask me how my day was at school. She didn’t hold my hand all the way to the car and ask me what I learned on that particular day. She didn’t ask me what I wanted for dinner and she didn’t tell me to put my seat belt on in case we got in a crash.

And my mother would have. 

To this day, my mother still smells the same as when I was little. And it’s these little details that I remember. It’s these lovely little trinkets that ship me back to 1992.

And maybe state-dependent memory doesn’t give a person license to act like a total man child but it certainly helps drunk people line dance.

One of the keys to life is a bad memory. –Rita Mae Brown