TOUUUCHHHDOWN… REMEMBER THAT?

The NFL is back! Ahhh yes… the best time of the year… both out there and in here (in my opinion) but in here… Man – it is by far the best 5 – 6 months. The time starts to absolutely fly by because all the “homeboys” are busy making mock fantasy teams to compete against each other… having “owners meetings” once a week to deal with free agency trades and the like for these teams… having weekly draft night for mock “weekly” fantasy teams… watching the actual games… talking (or arguing) about these games… and repeat. Football… it is the best! And on top of the actual action that sets the compound on fire surrounding the game… the comradery that this action brings to everyone in here is an incredible thing to witness. There is such a sense of “togetherness” that kicks off around this time of year and rolls right through the holidays… it certainly brings a brightness that helps a lot of us get through the fact that we are in here when we would much rather be surrounded by friends and family out there but once again… reality is reality so we make the best of it.

As I was in the football spirit… I started thinking about last football season and how I cannot believe I was here this time last year and as I started day dreaming… I was smacked with an extremely interesting “phenomenon”. I was attempting to remember what it was like… what happened… really anything about the season last year and weirdly… I was completely drawing a blank. I have almost zero specific memories about anything that happened last football season… like nothing. I had to think for a good 2-3 minutes to try and remember who was even in the super bowl last year and that was February of this year! Why is this? Why can I not remember specifics about a time of year that should be (and is while it is happening) the highlight of my year in here? I have memories for days of watching football in my real life… specific memories of plays that took place… memories of being in the backyard during specific games… memories of specific conversations… memories of laying on the floor with my boys while games were on and watching with them… memories of ordering BBQ and enjoying Sunday afternoons with good food and good friends… so many memories. And these memories are now 2 or more years in my rear view… some of them way longer than that because I can remember which house I lived in at the time and it wasn’t the most recent one. But I cannot easily remember who played in the Super Bowl mere months ago? I cannot remember one specific game or conversation I had with any of the “homeboys” as we watched the games together last year…. why? I find this endlessly interesting… there has to be a reason that I am not forming solid memories in this environment… why does my living conditions impact my memory? I am still socializing… I am learning new skills… I am having new experiences… I am meeting new people… but I am not retaining this information in a way that I can draw from at a later date… why?

So…this has my curious juices really flowing over here… I am wondering if there are any studies surrounding incarcerated people and memory retention. I assume I am not the only one that has (or is) experienced/ing this type of memory “phenomenon” so I would have to imagine that someone else along the line was curious enough to look into this as well and hopefully there is some literature out there surrounding the subject. I would imagine that it has something to do with the “groundhog day” effect in here… the fact that every single day is essentially just like the last with small variations here or there. And because of this fact… our brains do not feel the need to download and store completely new memories because “we have done this before”… there is no new information that is important enough for our brains to latch onto. But can this be possible? I have to find out. Or maybe it has to do with social connections… outside of these walls we have genuine… deep social connections to our world and the people in our world… and when we interact with “our world” and “our people” we care (deeply) about the actual interaction and the outcome of these interactions because we care about our world and our people… and because of this… we form memories surrounding these interactions that our memory bank holds onto because they are important to us. In here… that is not the case. Our interactions (for the most part) are simply situational… aka we work with these people so we talk to these people… we live with these people so we interact with these people. Most of these interactions are not by choice and not deeply “important” to us because we do not have the same level of intimate relationships in here as we do in the real world so maybe our brains’/memory knows this and doesn’t feel the need to bank these memories. Interesting right?!

Okay – that is enough public brainstorming. Due to my lack of that wonderful… incredible thing called the internet in here… I am stuck with my own thoughts and to hypothesize all by my lonesome on the matter but if you have an extra minute or two out there and want to dive in… feel free to send your findings my way 🙂

Stay Healthy. Stay Active. Bank some memories out there.

Enjoy the games!