{"id":64,"date":"2020-11-08T14:50:19","date_gmt":"2020-11-08T14:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.illinoisstate.edu\/euphemism\/16-1\/?page_id=64"},"modified":"2020-11-08T15:22:18","modified_gmt":"2020-11-08T15:22:18","slug":"please-dont-forget-me-lindsey-hardison","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/nonfiction\/please-dont-forget-me-lindsey-hardison\/","title":{"rendered":"Please Don&#8217;t Forget Me &#8211; Lindsey Hardison"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Please Don\u2019t Forget Me&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Being forgotten has been a concept I\u2019ve struggled with my entire life. I\u2019ve always lived with the feeling that I am more invested in my relationships with others and that I\u2019m disposable and never leave an impact on anyone I ever meet. When I leave people\u2019s lives, I feel as though they never look back or think twice. Just another face to be forgotten\u2026 someone who they once knew, where years from now they may see something that reminds them of me, but then that\u2019s it. A passing thought. I have always believed that I never had the capacity to hurt someone. That me leaving would never leave a hole in someone\u2019s life.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As I type this, it sounds more morbid than I realize. I don\u2019t mean it in a way that if I were to die no one would care. I mean it in a way that I\u2019ll always be a side piece in everyone\u2019s life whom I meet. I am fun while I\u2019m there, but everyone moves on and doesn\u2019t miss me being a part of their life. I don\u2019t care if people forget about me after I die because at that point, I no longer exist so it doesn\u2019t matter.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Some things need to be forgotten though. We forget things constantly every day. Dreams. Why we walked into a room. A text saying, \u201cwe got home safe.\u201d The name of a song we like. Forgetting is a part of life, but for some reason the feeling of being forgotten keeps me awake at night.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There could be many things it stems from. One most prominent is that I now no longer speak to any of my childhood friends. I don\u2019t forget about them, but I carry the belief they forgot about me. I think it is because they\u2019re the ones who decided to no longer be friends. Perhaps this fear stems from abandonment issues. These people who I considered to be my best friends could so easily leave me behind and find a new best friend.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Talking to someone in class and asking \u201cWeren\u2019t we in the same class last year? Allie, right?\u201d To which they respond, \u201cI don\u2019t remember! What\u2019s your name again?\u201d Forgotten.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I care a lot about people, and I try to remember things about everyone as much as I am capable. When someone tells&nbsp;me&nbsp;we\u2019ve met before and I don\u2019t remember, it hurts me probably more than it hurts them. When I don\u2019t remember someone\u2019s favorite song or a&nbsp;story&nbsp;they told me, I feel horrible and I ruminate on it for days. Perhaps I have a fear of forgetting as much as I do&nbsp;being&nbsp;forgotten.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A boy who I spoke to every day for months and trusted could easily leave me behind and never speak to me again, probably never once second guessing his decision. Seeing on social media how he has a new girlfriend after not even a month has gone by since he told me he thinks he loves me. Begging to talk to him for some explanation on how he could just leave and so easily never talk to me again after being so intertwined in each other\u2019s lives. Giving so much for him to just up and leave. Did I leave that little of an impact where he didn\u2019t even have the human decency to have a conversation with me on what the fuck happened? After talking every day, he just vanished, not a care in the world if I was still there or not. But I wasn\u2019t forgotten. Months later he gives me that 1 a.m. \u201chope you\u2019re doing well\u201d text. Give me a break.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I find that an unhealthy habit of mine is that I try to leave traces of myself behind to avoid the inevitable \u201cbeing forgotten.\u201d With my most recent breakup, I left him with a water bottle so that every time he drank, he would be reminded of me. I left him with headphones so whenever he listened to music, he would be reminded of me. I left him with my Netflix login so whenever he\u2019d watch a new movie or show, he would be reminded of me. Unhealthy, unhealthy, unhealthy.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">There\u2019s a difference I find between letting go and forgetting. Part of me left him with those things in hopes he\u2019d realize he made a mistake and ask to get back together. If I asked for them back, it\u2019d be confirming we\u2019re actually broken up and no longer together, which we are. By taking those things back, I would be letting him go and not forgetting him. I could never forget him. But in my mind if I have those things back, he would forget me. What\u2019s hard is that I can see how my thought process doesn\u2019t make sense, but it\u2019s that deep rooted belief that people just don\u2019t care about me as much as I care about them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am so emotional. I love being able to experience all the emotions that come with life. I try to not make decisions based on my emotions, but they overcome me and it\u2019s hard silencing them. Because I am so emotional, when I get to know someone, I give them all of me. Both the good and the bad because that\u2019s what makes me human. I don\u2019t see a point in hiding parts of myself, it\u2019ll come out eventually.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I have dreams about forgetting too. I have the same reoccurring dream that I forget I am late to work and get in trouble.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am just rambling at this point. I don\u2019t know the point of this piece, or if it could even be considered a piece. I have worked myself up writing about it. Forgetting is a part of life and I need to accept it. People forgetting me has no impact on my worth as an individual.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Please don\u2019t forget me.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"entry-summary\">\nPlease Don\u2019t Forget Me&nbsp; Being forgotten has been a concept I\u2019ve struggled with my entire life. I\u2019ve always lived with the feeling that I am more invested in my relationships with others and that I\u2019m disposable and never leave an&hellip;\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/nonfiction\/please-dont-forget-me-lindsey-hardison\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &ldquo;Please Don&#8217;t Forget Me &#8211; Lindsey Hardison&rdquo;<\/span>&hellip;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"parent":7,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"templates\/no-intro.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-64","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/64\/revisions\/93"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/16-1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}