COLUMN: It Would Be Fair If It Went Both Ways

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

By Tobin Barnes
I’ve got a problem. Well...I’ve got a lot of problems, but there’s one that’s particularly bothering me right now.

But that’s not all bad, I guess. Means I’m still alive and kicking.

As the saying goes, “The only people without problems are in the cemetery.”

Har!

That always makes me feel better, kinda, but just momentarily. After all, a “Har!” is just a microscopic interlude amidst the otherwise seething turmoil of life.

What the cemetery thing really means—and I don’t have to tell you—is that life equals problems. Of course, if all the problems were riddles and puzzles and fun mazes, that would be one thing. But they aren’t.

They’re more like thorny, nasty issues that if left unsolved can create more problems that have thorny, nasty issues.

So here’s my current problem. It just occurred to me the other day. Maybe you can relate to it, too.

My memory seems to be tuned into the negative. Know what I mean?

I can remember negative things about myself much better than positive things. I evidently have stropped my memory to razor sharp preciseness about the negative happenings in my life, while I have blunted my memory to a profound dullness as to the positive happenings.

I think—no, I know—that this hurts my self-esteem. And low self-esteem is one of those thorny, nasty issues. I’m sure I’d feel better if I could turn this around.

Like I said, this just occurred to me the other day when I was thinking of some doofus thing or other that I had done years ago. I don’t even remember what it was—heck, there’s a ton of them, a bottomless pit.

And I can vividly recall them as if they were happening to me right now. It’s almost like lucid dreaming where you can smell, hear, see, touch and taste the event. The negative memories are spooky in their reality.

These past moments involve things that I’ve said and things that I’ve done. I cringe whenever these memories pop into my mind.

Let me give you an example (hey, I’m not proud): I’m just a year or so out of high school at this dance at the Roller Drome in my hometown. I’m with a good friend when I see this girl and decide to ask her to dance. So I take off the jacket I’m wearing and hand it to my friend to hold, like he’s my valet or something.

Well, that was a doofus thing to do! Like I said, it makes me cringe to think of it.
To make matters worse, I start dancing with the girl like I’d seen people dancing at college, except I look like a dork when I’m doing it. And the girl starts to laugh at me. Needless to say, that potential relationship died right there on the dance floor.

Yeah, it wasn’t just a compound doofus double-flip, it was an ultra hangdog doofus moment. And it’s all so vivid to me now, even though it was forty years ago.

And I’m plagued with these lucid, vivid, doofus memories that pop into my head at random, spurred by some devilish latent triggers.

And I guess even that would be okay—might even be my due—if only I’d get some lucid, vivid hero memories as well to balance them.

But I don’t. The positive moments in my life don’t pop into my head nearly so easily.
There had to be a bunch of those bright, shining moments, too, didn’t there? A few, maybe?

Somewhere back there, I must have done something neat, said something brilliant…didn’t I?

Why can’t I remember them as vividly as my doofus moments? Yeah, something’s wrong with this picture. It’s psychologically perverse.

Not only are the positive moments not as vivid…heck, I have to wrack my memory to even find them. Go on mental safaris to hunt them down. And even then they’re only vague and foggy.

Why is that? Did they even happen?

It’s not fair I tell you. This is a problem!

It’s a screwed up mental landscape if I’ve ever seen one.