It’s funny to be studying memory now.

I worked at a bar last summer. One night after we closed my co-workers and I were sitting at one of the tables, talking about nonsense. It was probably 3:30 in the morning. Somehow conversation turned to when people you know die. They were all relating stories to each other and I mentioned that nobody super close to me had ever died. “Knock on wood” I added, rapping on the table.

“Knock on fucking wood, dude” my co-worker said. He knocked too.

Two weeks later my very recent ex-boyfriend killed himself. The night he died is engraved upon my memory. I remember finding out. I remember calling my mom. I remember drinking pink wine while someone put on the first episode of Sons of Anarchy to distract me. I tried to hold it together but “Fools Rush In” by Elvis played and I ran into the bathroom and lost it.

I was afraid to go to sleep because I didn’t want to wake up in the morning and have this new knowledge flood me. I also thought I would be wandering through the world and be accosted by memories of our time together. Instead I found I couldn’t remember anything. I tried to summon memories of him.  They weren’t coming.

All I could summon was a memory of one of our first days together. It was the second time we met. We agreed to meet at a corner when we were both coming home from different parties. I remembered walking up the street and seeing him waiting for me on a corner of the neighborhood I grew up in, a lone figure illuminated under a streetlight. His back was turned, he didn’t know I was coming.

We spent years together and I never thought of this moment while he was alive. After he died, this was the only memory I could will to mind for a few weeks.

Memories are weird, yo.