Forget

Has there been a time when you’ve forgotten basic information about yourself? Basic information like your phone number, address, birthdate, or email? It’s strange when it happens. It’s as if you don’t know who you are anymore, and that you’ve been living a life that you thought was yours.

I was at the store and when I went to the checkout line, the cashier asked me what my phone number was to pull up my membership . As soon as I tried to enter it on the keypad, I completely forgot it. I stood there for a moment, sifting through numbers in my mind, looking like I was doing mental math for a ten-step equation, but all I could come up with was other people’s phone numbers. It was like my brain had lost my own number, and the only way to retrieve it was to ask someone else who knew it.

Sometimes I think it’s the pressure that comes from having to recall something on the spot. I would’ve been able to type it if I was relaxed and could enter it at my own pace. But under pressure, everything locks up, and my brain is stuck, unable to function properly. I couldn’t remember my number no matter how hard I tried to think of it. Obviously, I know my number by heart, and I’ve written it down countless times on forms and documents. I’ve even told it to people time and time again, saying it without even thinking of it, so I should know it without hesitation.

But for whatever reason at that moment, I failed to recall it. The cashier might as well ask me the latitude and longitude of my address. I would’ve looked as perplexed as when I couldn’t remember my number.

And then moments later, after I had left the store and entered my car, I looked up my number on my phone and felt silly for not knowing it earlier. Why did my brain have a lapse when my number was so obvious to me? Was I aloof? Was I tired? Was my brain unable to make the synaptic connections to retrieve the data because of some misfire or it not working at all?

It could be a number of reasons. But one thing is clear: when we forget something that’s so basic and obvious to us, it’s like being a character in a movie that has forgotten their identity, forgotten where they live at and what their name is, and everyone’s expecting them to be themselves.