12:38 pm - There is Somewhere Who lurks in the back of my mind. I feel It moving as I walk, slamming into my cranium like a passenger on a bumpy bus ride. It defies definition, It's Somebody, many bodies, it's an amalgamation of hundreds of places, their names evading me. It resides in my mind but It does like to explore. I feel It creeping into my cold toes in bed at night. It itches my nose with the smell of campfire, sometimes I find It chewing holes into the warmest of my clothes.
I know that in November 2020, on a crisp monday morning I arrived in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I know that 96 days later I left North Carolina and haven’t been back since.
It’s curious how the memories of those 96 days left me. I find it hard to believe I lost them the minute I left the premises. But slowly as I threw away my hiking boots, as I locked my pack in the attic, I found myself no longer able to reminisce.
I know how memory works, that the farther you get from something, the mistier it seems. You can tell me that I’m making Something out of Nothing. I’ll probably believe you. What I do know is that simply the act of attempting to remember these 96 days feels distinctly different from any other. You must forgive me as I struggle to not only verbalize what the act of remembering feels like but what the memories themselves feel like.
2:10 pm - I can’t remember. I can’t remember. Im sitting at my desk trying to write this piece and I cannot fucking remember. This shouldn't be right. I told my story to the Huffington Post reporter last year when the body was found. What did i tell him? That i was abused? That i was healed?
You really must try to forgive me as I intended on sharing the experience of memory loss in an eloquent and insightful way but One would need memories to do that. I am frantically searching for something that is Gone and it’s so confusing and frustrating.
5:32 pm - I have decided to compose a list. I have attempted to convey my message in many different ways and this seems to be the easiest way. I truly do hope that you, dear reader, may be able to decipher this.
I do not remember the days. I know for a fact that it was indeed 96 but truthfully I could believe it to be 25 days or a year.
As we were not allowed to know the time or date, I have no frame of reference for the order of events that happened with the exception of the 1st day and the 96th.
I don't know how many girls were with me, I believe it shifted from 2-8. Since my time I have not been able to find any trace of anyone I met there with the exception of one person.
I don't know where I was within North Carolina. The only location I can remember is a place that we called The Elephant Graveyard. I am still able to conjure up an image of what it looked like in my mind.
I know we had a song that we sang 3 times a day and I cannot remember any of the lyrics.
I know I was there for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. I don't remember these days happening at all.
I know I tried to kill myself 2 times but I can’t remember how.
Despite this being a highly emotional experience I am unable to think of the intact memories with any emotion (with the exception of confusion and frustration) nor do I remember how I felt in these moments. I think this must be due to the fact that any memory that i have from this time feels like a story someone told me.
I don’t know what I looked like or what my body looked like during this time. I can’t see myself in any way, figuratively or literally, in these memories.
The people who surrounded me have been reduced to shadows, I don't remember their voices, faces, or their actions.
I don't remember how I heard of the first death but I think it was early on in my time there.
I urge you to believe me that this isn't simply memories eroding with the passage of time. I know it isn’t. Memories can be forgotten with a contented nature, when there's something shiny and new in the present and the details of the past no longer feel relevant. Memories disappear because you stop dwelling on them. I haven’t stopped thinking about my time in the woods and I don't know if I ever will.
I just wish that I could forget about what I lost. My brain contorts and it hurts so very much. I am so tired.