My name is Michelle (she/her). I am a writer and an amnesiac. In 2019, my gallbladder ruptured, causing an infection that deprived my brain of oxygen. When I awoke from surgery, the world I knew had disappeared. Faces, names, and the contours of my own story were gone. I could not remember who my friends were. I could not remember.
Doctors discussed brain damage, yet no one could explain the cause. I received two diagnoses: retrograde and anterograde amnesia. Now, I exist in the space between forgetting and remembering, continually reaching for memories that dissolve as I attempt to grasp them.
Writing is instinctive; it is essential as breath. I do not remember the words I once wrote. Occasionally, I encounter my own books on the shelf—three novels and three short stories, my name gleaming on the covers. These stories are unfamiliar to me, yet I know I am a writer. My process has changed: I write in brief flashes, stitching sentences together, never certain if I have written them before. I reread my lines repeatedly, editing by intuition and rhythm, trusting what resonates. I leave notes for myself, reminders in the margins. Each draft becomes a new discovery.
This site is a mosaic of fragments: writing, photographs, and pieces of my story. I share them to make sense of what remains. These are the stories that persist, even when memory does not.
Memory influences every sentence I write. At times, the thread escapes my grasp midway. I collect notes, fragments, and chapters. My current project is Born Without An Algorithm, a memoir about living with a mind that resists conventional patterns. Writing, forgetting, and writing again. In this book, I examine what it means to rebuild a life without guidance, and how identity, purpose, and connection persist as memory fades. My world of endless stories intertwines moments of loss and unexpected discovery, seeking meaning in the spaces between what is remembered and what is lost.