Object Permanence

Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. It is acquired by the human infants between 8 and 12 months of age via the process of logical induction to help them develop secondary schemes in their sensori-motor coordination. This step is the essential foundation of the memory and the memorization process.

As I watch my 9 month old daughter work her way through this latest step in development and wish I could get inside her head to hear her sort this out, I begin to wonder if I'm having problems with this concept myself.

I've been trying to put into words this vague, nagging feeling I've had lately that has steadily become more insistent. I try to bring it up with my therapist, but whenever I do, I just wind up floundering helplessly as she stares, waiting for the next insight. I keep telling her if I had dazzling insights, I wouldn't be paying her 150 Euros for 45 minutes of listening.

All my life I've had difficulty with things ending. When I got older and realised that understanding that endings are as important as beginnings, I tried to find ways to partition the idea in my head so when I need to understand a similar concept, I can recall the data. It's very computer-like, which is odd, considering how many Luddite leanings I have.

So when I say I have a hard time with endings, it's because so much in life is so vague and unfinished. I know people are fond of the term, "I need closure with that!" to the point where it's overplayed and lost all meaning. But for me, I could never let things die of their own course; each relationship I've ever had that has just fizzled out has left me feeling lost and cold, like something left outside too long that the sun eventually bleaches and weakens and the wind gradually erodes down.

Everyone has Unfinished Business, things that have ended unexpectedly. No one has all their loose ends tied up, and feeling this way from time to time is a part of the human condition. I get that. But this goes deeper, and I think it's the result of living in such a liquid environment for the last 11 years.

You see, when we moved to England back in 1999, we went in with the understanding that it could be three years or three months, that the government could pull the funding for hubby's job at a moment's notice, that he could come home tomorrow and say, "My billet's been rejected. We have 5 days to pack and say goodbye to everyone." It happens more than you know, this sudden recall of you as a number with no regard to saying good bye to friends, withdrawing children from school, saying farewell, any of it. One accepts this temporariness as part of The Bargain of seeing a foreign country on someone else's tab.

When you're young and newly married, as we were, it's all rather romantic and exciting and moment to moment. As you get older, however, the sparkle has dulled a great deal, and you start to feel as though you don't belong anywhere.

We've been overseas 11 years now, and I cannot even begin to list the ways I have changed. My thinking, my approach to life, my maturity level and sense of responsibility, how I deal with other people...everything has been completely overhauled. I believe I am a much better person on the whole than when I left...not to say I was a wretch, but I'm proud to say I've let parts of myself out that I didn't know how to release when I was younger. I'm a lot truer to myself, and I'm working on not letting people walk all over me. I can be as powerful as I always wanted to be, on days I remember I am.

But this creeping, unnamed feeling has gotten stronger over the last year, and I think at last I can give it a title, if not a definition. It is object permanence.

It's the feeling that when we leave Germany next summer (and end our overseas tours) that we will leave no lasting mark of all the time we've spent here. The movers will come, just as they have 5 times before, confine all our worldly goods to boxes, endless boxes, the rooms will empty, we'll clean the last remains of our time here with a rag and desposit it into a bin, and that will be that. The house will be repainted and reset for another occupant, all traces of our presence removed.

What is the mark of a life passing through one point and onto another?

I thought of this the other morning when I awoke from a nightmare sweaty and terrified. It seemed like all those who've come before me on this mortal plane had somehow become a part of me, whispering their names, desires, dreams...then informing me that all the secrets they held in their hearts stayed and died there. And a thought implanted in me that has not left me since: who will remember me when I die?

Not like in a "Here's great granny Yorkie..she was one cracked nut...and here are the Oktoberfest mugs she got 56 years ago..." kind of way. Or even in a permanent structure sort of way (although I'd be immensely flattered if someone built a mausoleum for me and would probably haunt it with glee). I mean, who will remember that I was a living, breathing human who counted the hours, sometimes the minutes, in every day, with raging thoughts, regrets, emotions so sharp and fast I can't keep up with them...that every single day I got out of bed feeling unrested but going at it anyway, that I trudged down the stairs to the basement laundry room to start another load. Or that every day at 5pm my thought is, "Oh, hell...what am I making for dinner tonight?"...or that most days I hate what I see in the mirror?

What is left behind when we die, other than bones? What tangible proof remains that we once thrummed with energy and possibility and thought? Do we actually leave a mark on the world, or are we more like a series of hotel rooms, cleaned and scrubbed and ready for the next inhabitant by noon?

I first became acquainted with this uneasiness when I watched the final episode of "Firefly", called "Objects in Space". I don't think it ever aired, but it's the best one, by far the most compelling and thought-provoking.

"So is it still her room when it's empty? Does the room, the thing have purpose?"
"People don't appreciate the substance of things. Objects in space. People miss out on what's solid."

The first sentence put into words what my own mind failed to do. It's the problem I have with endings. Take for example a few weeks ago when we were on holiday in Italy. We were all in a rather cramped hotel room, in very close quarters, and the togetherdness really, really drained me. It's probably because in our current house I have no space that's mine and everyone else does. I have no corner to retreat to where I can imbue my own energies and feel as though I'm safe. I didn't realise how important that was to me until it was slowly taken away by necessity of child-rearing.

Anyway, we were all together in this hotel room, and the first night Bea was a terror. She screamed from 1.30-4.30, then passed out. I don't know why, but the waves of stress and tension coming off everyone nearly rattled the windows. After that, the trip picked up, and we had a good time, for the most part. When we left, I did a last sweep to make sure we hadn't left anything behind, which we hadn't, and I shut the door behind us.

It should've been closure, but it wasn't. Instead, it was upsetting. We'd spent three days and three nights in that room, a tiny measure of our live in the grand scheme of things, but it was where we WERE. We had breathed the air, smiled, laughed, cried, talked...LIVED. And if I opened the door again, I could still smell our collective smells (my hairspray, hubby's shampoo, Bee's nappy rash creame, the candies that Max eats when his stomach is bad). It felt like we were still there, but we were in the hallway.

I couldn't get the two halves to join. I couldn't get the past to connect to the present. I felt like I'd just locked our dopplegangers into that room with no way out. It was horrible and disorienting because for a moment, I didn't know where I was.

It's happening more and more. When I pick Maxman up from the bus stop after school each day, we go to the local Backeri and have a pretzel and something to drink. He can talk about his day and unwind a bit before we go home to the Dinner/Homework/Bath/Bed rush hour. The Backeri is closed after noon on Saturdays, and when I walk by, I feel like I'm seeing myself trapped in the darkened store with Max, screaming to get out because I'm frozen in time and can't move forward. It's to the point where I won't even look at the Backeri any more if it's closed.

I don't know if it's a nightmare crossing into the light of day, an inability to process the passage of time, or just my anxiety disorder flaring up in a new, fun way. But when I look around at our bedroom, for example, and think about how in 8 months' time all of it will be packed back up and relegated to boxes, it frightens me so much I pull the covers to my nose. The bed room walls are white, the carpet grey. It's like living in a negative, and the white walls are so oppressive that I once spent an entire weekend hanging things up full of colour. There's a bright green and gold tapestry over our heads. The pictures on the wall are framed in red. The bookcase is tall and loaded with colour, mismatched books. I even hung a Tree of Life tapestry over the desk, and a large portion of the floor is covered in an ornate and lively oriental rug. I'm fighting back the gray because if it gets too close to me, it will meet with the confusion and gray in my mind, and I don't think I'd survive that.

When Max goes to school in the morning, I look up the stairs to his bedroom (which he no longer sleeps in, as he wants to sleep in the same room with Bea), and I see the hall light is on still. One time I even called out his name, just to see if his memory would answer. I called two or three times, but of course, nothing happened. I was still alone. I had meant to go up and empty out his dirty clothes hamper, but I couldn't face his empty room, even though the floor is literally covered in Lego, books, toys, and more Lego. It's a room that holds a creative and active mind.

But...

"Does the room, the thing have purpose?"

When we are gone, will they remember not what we did but how hard it was to do it? How are so many of the days were, just to push back the tears of futility and exhaustion, and convince ourselves that life is worth the constant uphill struggle because the sparse plateaus on which we take a rest are worth it? Will anyone remember what my voice sounds like or my laugh?

What will I leave behind, what mark, what impression will tell those who follow what I was?

Can anyone shed some insight?