I DONT REMEMBER by Natascha Maciejewski

I don’t remember who I was before 10 years ago. Before she got sick, before I nursed her, before she
died. I have not lost my memory through some accident or bump on the head, but I just don’t
remember. I can picture all of the moments I noted meticulously in my diary. I can re-live those
times in my mind, but I still don’t remember who I was.

I am a completely different person now, a person adapted out of necessity. A person shaped out of
raw sadness, desperate loneliness, and blind panic. It seems as though a bright light flashed and tore
away the child I was forever, leaving a bitter, hardened, angry version of myself there instead.

I sometimes long for that smiling girl I see in pictures and I wish I could trade places with her. Then I
remember I am her, she is me. I wish I could go back in time and give that girl, that ‘me’ I know I was
some advice. I wish I could hug her and comfort her during all those awful years that turned her into
me. Maybe then, I would be a different person today...