Yesterday I indulged myself by lounging around all morning in my pajamas and reading a new book I got for Christmas, What Alice Forgot, by Lianne Moriarty, from cover to cover.

The plot goes as follows (without spoilers): After falling and hitting her head at the gym, 39-year-old Alice wakes up without any memory of the last 10 years of her life, including the birth of her 3 children, the dissolution of her marriage, the remarriage of her mother, and her strained relationship with her sister. To her, she is still 29, blissfully married, pregnant with her first child, and wondering what in the world she was even doing at a gym, of all places.

I had high expectations for the book: my friends loved it, my sister loved it, and I’ve read other books by Moriarty that I loved. I’m not sure I loved this book. I’m unsettled by it, and I’m still thinking about it. . . .

IMG_3741I remember lying on my pink flowered bedspread in the room I shared with sister Allison when I was in seventh grade, watching Allison get ready to go to the high school football game with her friends. She was adding earrings to her ensemble when she said, “You can come with, if you want.” If I wanted? There was nothing I wanted more! She was popular, always surrounded by boys, and she always knew the right thing to say. I, on the other hand, wrote down my anticipated side of every phone conversation before dialing, and I agonized about making friends.

Six years later, Allison and I ended up at BYU together, me as a freshman, her as a sophomore. None of my high school friends decided to go to BYU, so I went on my own and signed up to live in Heritage Halls with 5 girls I’d never met before. I had heard my mom’s and aunt’s stories of crazy fun times in the dorms and was determined that was to be my lot too. And it would be, eventually, but my second Saturday night I found myself knocking on Allison’s apartment door. She wasn’t home, of course, so I went in her room and sat on the floor next to her own pink flowered bedspread and cried, lonely and homesick, and desperate to talk to my sister.

Two years ago, my husband and I and our 4 kids moved to Utah after 13 years living in other states. We moved five minutes from Allison. In our years apart, Allison’s and I’s phone calls gradually grew less frequent. I married, struggled with infertility, and later with post-partum depression. I finished a Ph.D., had 4 children, and moved across country twice. She stayed in Utah, built a business, a home, and a family with her husband, and forged a strong support network of friends. In the past two years, we have not managed even once to go to lunch together or to run together (a favorite activity through our college years).

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The first two years that Joe and I were married, I spent many winter evenings curled up on the couch next to him, watching the LA Lakers win games. However, I can’t stand watching basketball. But I loved being with Joe, making quips at the TV, falling asleep with my head on his shoulder.

Almost sixteen years later, and I can’t remember the last time I watched a Laker game with Joe. Of course, the Lakers are lousy now, but even if they weren’t, again, I can’t stand watching basketball. And with four kids, a part-time teaching job, and a busy church calling, not only do I not have any time to even watch the sports I love (I’m trying to watch football playoffs as I type this–football, now there’s a sport!), but truth be told, I begrudge Joe the time he spends on the couch watching the sports he loves (which is almost all of them). What once was a bond, is now often a wedge.

So here I am, about the same age as the fictional Alice. I didn’t love this book because I saw too much of myself in its pages. For Alice, forgetting forces introspection, which eventually leads to more maturity. For me, this book has forced some introspection: Ten years worth of experiences changes relationships, changes people. Memories can harm relationships and can strengthen them. Older doesn’t always mean wiser–sometimes older means more guarded, more jaded, more judgmental, more hardened. Thanks to this book, I’m committed in this new year to trying harder in my relationships to remember the good, to remember what I may have forgotten.

What has the role of memory been in your relationships? How have your relationships affected the person you are today, and how does the person that you are today affect your current relationships?


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