It occurred to me today that I have an astonishing lack of nostalgia for my past. I wonder why that is.

I have the memories, and they are just dandy. And I have a somewhat unsettling patchwork of holes in those memories, too. I was just talking to a friend about having been to Nassau so long ago that I can no longer remember which husband or lover accompanied me.

Did it all mean so little that so many of these details have faded from view? I remember the ocean there, and walking the market obviously set up for the tourists, and buying a couple of overpriced trinkets. I can even remember what I bought. But I can't remember the man at my side.

What has created these gaps in the fabric of memory? Surely the answer is not simply old age. I have always had this. Chunks missing out of my recollections, voids in an otherwise smooth-running film of my past. Nixon's missing 18 minutes on those tapes have nothing on me. I got your missing 18 minutes, and will raise you a disappeared entire summer of 1987.

More curious than the question of what has created these gaps, is what happened in those gaps? Anything interesting? Scary? Awful? Really great?

I wonder if, when I am an elderly, frail old lady with parchment skin and wispy hair, lying on my bed as my life fades away, if I will then recall what occurred during those missing times? Will it all come back to me then? I am not sure if I am hoping it will, or it won't.