Went out to an event a few weekends ago, but did not actually get to attend the event, because I did not purchase tickets to the event and it was sold out when we got there.
I was absolutely certain I had purchased the tickets. I remember looking at the site, I remember filling out the form, I remember where I was when I filled it out, I remember talking to someone about it while I did it.
Except, I did not do this. I did not fill out the form. I did not have the conversation. Checked the receipts, got a second opinion. The timeline of my memory doesn’t match reality.
What a jarring sensation! It feels on a spectrum with deja vu, of being gaslit by reality. Like when you discover it’s the Berenstain Bears, or that Shazaam is not in fact a movie. (I’m sorry for the experience you’re about to have if you just learned these things from me.)
Makes a guy wonder how much of what’s rattling around in that old trunk of memories actually happened, or happened to you and not the person who told it to you, or happened in the time and place you remember it happening. Probably not much.