A Day In The Life of Bri

Warning: can be distressful to those who've had personal connections with someone diagnosed with dementia.

Memory, it’s the one thing we as humans choose to forget or keep within us. But, what if that can easily be taken away from us in an instant? An entity or being within our own aging minds that only takes our identities away from us. That’s what happened to such a human like myself. It's a pain and struggle everyday. Faces, faces I once knew! They’re but a blur to me, a fragment I once could put together. Now, it feels as though I can never find the final piece to the puzzle. Walking down my hallways have memories that I can feel but never see again. Fading faces and echoes that once were heard, now taken away from me. The fear of living everyday of your life knowing at any moment you forget.

These pictures on my walls, they tell no story or perhaps they did once. Each second that goes by I slowly start to forget who I once was. The only thing I’m holding on to is this letter in my hand. Eventually it’s just going to become another fading echo I longed to. I wish I knew somebody who once loved me, though I do not see no one? Laughs are heard everywhere, within these rooms joy! So much joy, that’s now lost in time which I know I don’t have much of. Walking out into the streets there’s people talking to those they know of, I wish I knew of somebody.

All I feel instead is this coldness and dizziness inside, I feel as though I’m already dead. Am I alive? Am I dead? No, I can still feel the sharp edges of this paper. The quill’s ink making a mess on my fingers, a bird singing outside my window. Yet, I still feel no belonging anywhere. When I look outside the kitchen window there resides two chairs that maybe I and someone else once sat in. Now whenever I sit in one there’s grief then nothing at all. Most days I feel nothing at all, like I can’t truly remember. This paper and this ink pen are the only thing that has familiarity to it. Though I slowly feel that fading away, by what? I wish I could truly tell, but I'm just left here with coldness and sorrow.

Perhaps I was always alone, but would that explain the picture frames on the walls? They do tell a story just one that I can not hear and see. Lately I’ve just been getting sidetracked, even writing this it’s hard to try and maintain focus. I feel as though I’m slowly losing myself to the emptiness of the darkness. A young man often visits me saying he knows me, but I don’t know him I'm sure. Every time he visits me there’s a hint of sadness and feelings of loss? I feel it within him I truly can relate. Though it’s obvious for him, his emotions are meant for me. The young man will show me pictures that do not reside in my house, but yet somehow they’ll contain me in it. Of course it’s always the faces I can not recognize and even my own sometimes in the mirror.

Everyday feels like a headache filled with dullness, emptiness, and a heart that grows older. It’s rather painful, luckily I still have my writing to pass the time. Really it’s the only thing I can remember that fills me with familiarity and glee. Though I’ll admit I too, am afraid I may find sorrow and nothingness in the beauty of this self-fulfilling hobby. Maybe tomorrow that’s when I’ll forget what it truly once was, now as I say that I feel this quiver on my lips and water in my eyes. I’m afraid, am I really who I truly am anymore? How can one recognize my face being familiar when I can not even remember it at all! How does a chair outside my kitchen window or a certain smell fill me with loneliness and yet reassurance at the same time? There’s no point, no matter how hard I can try to remember, I get nowhere. My room is always a mess with pills laying everywhere labeled “Donepezil” a strange name. Someone told me it’s to help with memory loss, but I don’t really think it’s working at all. Of course I wish it could. All my problems would then be solved, the crises can be averted yet I’m still stuck. It's as if I took over someone else’s life and they’ve taken mine. Who am I truly, am I still a human being or am I just an echo in this world.

These hazy memories feel like a mirage and yet they still feel as though there’s humanity within them. Why must I suffer this, why must I feel the constant fear and anxiety everywhere I go. Confusion and a warped reality is the most dangerous for if one does not know who they’re and why others claim to know you. It gets to you I start to question my reality and wonder, is it my fault? Perhaps it’s just the natural part of life, a tortuous one at that. After all, memory is what we cherish the most in life, but losing those nostalgic pieces in our life we lose a part of ourselves with it. I just wish I can remember but I'm afraid not. I'm filled with dread every day knowing that I’ll forget the last part of myself that I know. Even if I can not remember, I know that I still made history in this world. History that’s sadly lost, forgotten and can no longer be told from my own mouth. I just feel so tired and dazed I don’t know what’s real anymore. Time can not tell me who i’m, it can only make me forget who I once was. Tomorrow will be that last day, the inevitable isn’t it? I'm truly so afraid of this darkness taking the last part of me that I'm holding on to. This writing even if I notice it, all it will do is make me much more lost and confused. I just don't want to forget the last things that make me who I'm in the first place! I'm scared and no one is even here to comfort me as I wither away. This thing that makes us forget our memories is of a curse anxiety and waiting for the inevitable is torturous! Whoever may read this, please be thankful for the time you have and the memories you make. One day we'll eventually forget the past that has created our present selves. You Do not want to grieve like me, hold on to yourself. If you focus on the future and not the present that'll be your last mistake.