Twice-baked

I sit in the room of my childhood, surrounded by relics of the past (my past!); they are numerous, scattered all around like detritus from cookies that somebody (not me, no way) could, hypothetically, have been noshing on in bed late at night while watching bootlegged episodes of Breaking Bad, which by the way is a supremely anxiety-inducing series so I would not be quick to judge anyone who might wish to counter the thumbscrews-heart-in-throat-pulse-pounding horror factor of the show with a stash of miniature almond biscotti, okay?

Anyway, the point is that artifacts of my early-to-adolescent years are everywhere. I keep expecting them to ambush me at any moment. Those pointe shoes hanging on the wall, frayed and worn-- if I examine them too closely, will I suddenly convulse with nostalgia for Nutcrackers past? What about the Ancient Greek textbook from high school with all my notes in the margins and my smartass (σμαρτας) transliterations of swear words using the Greek alphabet? Could a perusal of this volume unearth an cache of memories, the symbols of historical antiquity guiding me to a rediscovery of personal antiquity? And dare I read through my old journals, which mostly detail my various ill-fated infatuations with some poor schlub or another? Can I bear to go there? 

Yet the objects are strangely mute on this visit, as though I interrogated them too many times in the past and they gave away all of their secrets. Now all I can remember is the ritual itself-- I am supposed to hold these things in my hands, as always, breathe them in, say "take me back, take me back." But "back" has been slipping away unnoticed while I've been out accumulating more "now," and "now" becomes the new "back" with astonishing rapidity, and the filing cabinet of my mind can only hold so much information and somebody, some sneaky ninja secretary of the Unconscious, must have been taking my outdated files to the shredder, bit by bit.

I pull a sheet of paper from the recesses of my desk: it bears a title, "Sentimental Value Bit of Graph Paper :)", in the high school incarnation of my handwriting, but it arouses no sentiment in me other than mild confusion, as in I am drawing a huge blank on the story behind this emoticonned remnant. It must have been juicy to merit such preservation-- I had obviously once taken the time to label the sheet and leave it for Future Me, expecting that she would wryly wink back across time and space. Instead, Future Me rubs her temples, looks around the room, concedes that she has not lived here for eons and that the rift has widened and it is starting to feel irreversible; more and more now her affection is contained in vessels that are elsewhere, dispersed all across the contiguous U.S. (and beyond) like so many crumbs of biscotti...