Who's Who

"Looking back, you realize that a very special person passed briefly through your life, and that person was you. It is not too late to become that person again." - Rober Brault

This evening I had the pleasure of having my portrait painted by artist, Eric Armusik. It is the first time anyone has created an image of me, in a medium other than photography, since I was five. In 1975, while my family was vacationing in Ocean City, a boardwalk artist did a charcoal sketch of me. It still hangs on the wall in my parents' house.

Sitting for the portrait, while a great deal of fun (Eric and his wife Rebekah are delightful), was taxing. Staying still is harder than you think, especially when you MUST remain still. The neck and back injuries began protesting almost immediately, but I was allowed breaks to stretch and reposition. That aside, it was a marvelous experience and I shall treasure the portrait, but all this focus on my visage got me thinking about the self and our, or rather my, image of it.

One of the scarier moments post accident was when I was casually flipping through the photos on my ex's phone and found a picture of a woman I did not recognize. She was smiling at the camera, with a look that implied a relationship with the photographer. It wasn't vulgar, or flirty, just, knowledgeable.

I freaked out.

Who was this woman? Why did he have a picture of THIS WOMAN on his phone? Why was she smiling? What the hell?

As I began my rant and asking those questions, in escalating degrees of shrillness, my ex looked at me, at first amused and then baffled. "Are you serious?" he asked.

"Yes."

I was deadly serious.

He paused a moment and said, "It's YOU, Lor."

Then it was my turn to pause. I looked at the picture again. Then I looked harder. Then I realized that the woman was wearing my jacket. And that I recognized the location. Although I knew it HAD to be me, my brain still wouldn't accept the fact. There was absolutely no recognition that the woman in the photo was me.

I was terrified. Nothing had ever happened like that before. Sure I'd forgotten names and dates and things since the accident but I didn't recognize myself. Disorienting doesn't begin to explain the feeling.

Lucky for me, I've never had a repeat of that experience, but it was enough to give me a taste of what "real" amnesia must feel like. Technically, I have what it know as an "Amnestic Disorder", which is, simply, a problem with how memory is created, stored, or retrieved. It comes in many forms, some more benign than others. Even with the things I have lost, when I consider this incident, I feel like I got off easy.