How Your Brain Remembers Where You Parked The Car [NPR.org]

I had once been told by my first EMDR therapist, that I had been "over-utilizing my short-term memory", and I thought about when I related a story about recalling a conversation I had with someone, VERBATIM. As I reflect on it, it seemed it might have involved someone I had an "Adversarial Relationship" with. I had been working as an Investigator for a law office, and one attorney [my boss] suggested that when I had to meet with my parole officer, that I go across the street from the parole office, to the diner, and write down the entire conversation, which I did, before I took the bus back to work, at the law office, where I filed my written [verbatim] transcript. I've since contemplated the role of Philip Zimbardo's Time Perception assessment tool, along with the PTSD symptom: "Fore-shortened sense of the future". Of late, I notice that I sometimes encounter people, who know me by name, but I don't recall their name, or where I met them. This is puzzling, because when I gave my second "prepared" speech in Toastmasters, entitled: "Listening and Memory", I had listed the (? eight?) reasons for [effective] listening (while on a airplane flight-from out-of-state), on an index card....which, when I began my speech, I quickly reviewed, then I left the rostrum and stood behind the first person to my left, giving his or her name, their spouses's name, where they worked, and some personal preference they had; moved to the next person, did the same, and got all around the room of about 40 people [whom I'd only recently met] within the 7 minute time limit for prepared speeches, and took my second "Best Speaker of the night" award, later that night. Lately, I've also contended with some "relational brokenness" that may account for my not remembering someone's name and/or where I met them. I hope it's not the start of Alzheimer's. While I was working at that law office, I had an unusual experience the first time I went to a new church, but it was a profound attachment [Risking Connection] experience with someone (the pastor) I'd just met for the first time....as I was departing the sanctuary after conclusion of the sermon [I was the last person to leave], and the pastor greeted everyone as they departed toward the coffee and gathering room. He introduced himself to me, noting we hadn't met before, and I introduced myself. He asked if I was new to the area, and I replied that I'd been away. He asked if I had been in the [military] service, and I shamefully hung my head down, and said no, I had been in prison. He still had hold of my hand, and he looked up at me, made eye contact, and said: "Welcome Back", and I broke into tears, and wept for about twenty seconds. Then he invited me to have coffee and meet other members of the congregation. I wiped the tears off my face, and followed him. ...  The Pastor, about two years later, moved to Iowa. About three years later, while hitchhiking back from Kansas-at the conclusion of my second "tour of duty" as a VISTA Volunteer in the "War on Poverty", I stopped in Burlington, Iowa to visit him. Met a lot of delightful folks there, and I can remember who and where I met many of them. Delight must have a significance in how I encode memories, because "relational brokenness" and/or depressive episodes seem to impact the quality of my memory.