Explore the hauntingly beautiful journey of memory loss, from the snags of forgetfulness to the silence of disconnection.

The forgetting came slowly—like the sun slipping down, like a name you once knew floating just out of reach. This is a quiet story of fading, written in soft echoes and honest ache.

It doesn’t come in with shouting or banging doors. It starts like a tiny crack you might step over on the sidewalk without noticing. A name just out of reach, like a coin dropped in deep water. A picture in your head that fades before you can see it clear. We laugh it off, wave a hand like swatting a fly, say it’s just getting older or too many things buzzing in our heads. But a cold little pebble settles in your stomach. You feel it. A slip. A quiet letting go.

You don’t just vanish from yourself all at once. It happens slow, like the sun going down. A long, drawn-out goodbye to the light. The bright colours of your days turn to grey, not quick, but bit by bit, minute by minute, until you’re standing right in the middle of a room you’ve known forever, and it just looks back at you, empty, like it doesn’t know your face anymore.

Before, oh, the mornings used to sing! The sun didn’t just shine; it touched your skin soft, like a promise whispered just for you. Like someone sweeping the sleep away with fingers warm from holding a mug. The smell of coffee wasn’t just a smell; it wrapped around you like an old blanket that knew your shape, humming, “You’re still here, you made it.” The noise from outside – the horns, the rumbling trucks – it wasn’t noise. It was the sound of the world breathing, a big, messy heartbeat you felt right along with your own. Everything had a hook to hang on, and you knew exactly where yours was.

Then the threads started pulling loose. Small snags at first. A word perched right on the edge of your tongue, fluttering, but never landing. A road you’d walked a thousand times suddenly twisting into something strange and cold. I’d make up stories in my head – “Just tired,” “Mind’s too full,” “Didn’t get enough sleep.” But the real truth was already under the door, a cold draft creeping in.

The people sitting near you still smiled. But their laughter felt like wind chimes heard from a long, long way off. Their faces looked the same, yes, but something in your own eyes had changed the way you saw them. The clear lines started to blur. Not of them, no. Of you. You started losing your own edges.

Fear didn’t kick the door down. It just walked in quiet and sat down, and it hasn’t left. It’s a tight knot deep inside, pulling tighter with every sentence that gets lost, every face that becomes a question mark. I started keeping little scribbles on paper in my pockets, words I couldn’t always read later, just the feel of them was something. I’d hold onto old pictures like a child holds a stone found on the beach – not because it was warm, but because it was real, solid. Not to see the smiling faces, but to see the person standing there, to remember that person was me.

I began asking questions that felt heavy and strange on my tongue. Like tasting something that wasn’t yours. “Who are you all?” “What was it I used to feel happy about?” “Where was the spot I always liked to sit?” I’d ask people to tell me the story of my own life, like I was listening to a tale about someone else, someone I barely knew. They’d tell it soft, like reading a book to a child. But even their voices started to sound like sounds you hear right before you wake up, sounds you can’t quite hold onto.

The days kept coming. The pot boiled coffee. The sun still threw light onto the floor. But none of it spoke my name anymore. It felt like watching a person in a mirror move like you, but knowing, deep down, it wasn’t you looking back. It was just a picture moving.

Now, I live in tiny bits of time. Just these small pieces. A hand holding mine that feels warm. A taste that is sweet for just a second. A song playing somewhere that makes a tiny light flicker far inside, then it goes out again before you can even say hello. Time doesn’t stretch out in front or behind anymore. It just stays right here, floating, like a feather that never lands, just hangs in the air.

And down inside, there’s a deep, quiet ache. Not the kind that makes tears run down your face. But the kind that just sits in your chest, heavy, like a stone, making everything feel a little harder to lift. It’s the quiet sorrow of not remembering what it felt like to be all the way here.

Sometimes, I hear laughing and my mouth wants to curve up, but I don’t know what the joke was. Sometimes, I feel eyes on me, kind eyes, full of worry, but I don’t know what they see when they look at me. I feel like a ghost walking through my own home, watching a life that used to be mine, but isn’t anymore.

Every now and then, a smell, a sound, something simple, pulls at a thread inside. A door opens, just a crack, just for a heartbeat. But before my foot can even step towards it, it slams shut again. And I’m left in the fog, with pieces of something I can’t put back together.

I am still here. Yes. But not all of me came along for the ride. I’m like the last bit of a song that used to fill the whole room. Now, it’s just a quiet hum. A soft sound. Getting softer. Fading.

Updated on April 23, 2025 with new reflections and a deeper voice that found its way over time.