I, a writer, married a man who had a learning disability as a child and doesn’t enjoy reading. Otherwise his is completely perfect, but sometimes it sucks that I can’t connect with him through the written word. Recently, I had the idea that I can read aloud while we lie bed in order to help us get to sleep and also tackle my to-be-read pile. Which…. if it topples could bury someone.

Determined, I went to my office and grabbed some of the aforementioned to-be-read pile. I even threw in some of my books as well, so he could hear some of those for the first time. He put the books in order that we would read them and that night, we were off!

Kind of.

The book he put on top of the pile was Bad Mistakes & Good Intentions, a book I wrote after I broke up my engagement. I was in such a bad place that I literally don’t remember most of that time. Which is a recurring theme in my life. Anyway, I was halfway through the first poem when I realized several things:

1. There was so much swearing
2. I did not remember anything about this poem at all
3. Why did I pick that title?
4. Why couldn’t I just stop talking about fucking people for two seconds???

My husband asked if I could go to a different book and I was more than happy to. I then grabbed Talia’s Twilight Sleep. Which is a book about hope when literally nothing in my life was going right. I managed to get through the entire book, but I realized several more things:

1. My poetry is so depressing, it’s no wonder my brain blocked it out
2. Good god, did I need a hug back then
3. I was doing more telling than showing, but my imagery was strong
4. No wonder no one reads my poetry, getting through 30-something pages was agonizing

I started in on Encore next, but that book was political poems circa COVID and I couldn’t even bring myself to read any of them. Especially when things have gotten so much worse in recent years and my indignation at what COVID-era Trump was doing seems cute in comparison to what horrors Project 2025-era Trump has unleashed upon us.

I thought to myself, tomorrow I will grab my book, Karaoke, that’s lighter fare! It has the Kylo Ren poem in it and everything. The next day, I grabbed a copy and flipped through it. Then I remembered what was actually in the book and the Kylo Ren poem doesn’t make up for the other 100+ pages of absolutely grinding trauma and pain.

So, yeah…

It’s pretty bizarre to me that these books weren’t even written that long ago. Bad Mistakes & Good Intentions was written in 2016. That’s only 10 years ago. I published it in 2022. But somehow I barely remembered any of it or anything else I had written.

As to what is actually going on in my brain most of the time, who knows? But it seems odd I literally can’t remember what I wrote. Especially when writing, editing, formatting, and publishing books requires that you go over the material so many times you’re sick to death of it.

And let’s not discount the fact that I am reading these books like they were written by someone else. I was this person 10 years ago, but now I don’t see much of myself in her at all. I suppose that’s good? Shows growth or something? Not sure, will be discussing this in therapy.

The good news is that the hubby and I finally settled on a sci-fi novel I got at a convention and I read a few pages of that. Also, it got me sleepy enough I managed to go to bed and fall asleep quickly instead of staring at the ceiling for hours before getting up and watching YouTube in the living room until I passed out.

So… victory?