On my way to work this morning, along a divided highway, I saw another vehicle approaching me. The driver had their window rolled down and they were sticking their arm out the window and letting the breeze to hit it. I too, had my windows down as it was hot. I visualized in my head that as our cars passed along the highway we both reached out and gave one another a high five. Then I imagined how painful it would be to give someone a high five going 45 mph. Then I imagined what would happen if the other drive hung onto my hand as they drove away. I felt a twinge in my arm and I jumped in my seat.

I'll often find myself in situations where I can clearly see one thing happening but then I'll visualize another. Sometimes it's pleasant. Sometimes it's hurtful. Sometimes it is sexual in nature. I don't know how quite to express this to someone without them thinking I'm the "C" word.

I know in my head I can run with ideas and take them too far. I'll imagine my son playing on the soccer field and dying from a collision with another player or taking a shot to the head from a ball gone out of control. I think about the the EMT's coming to revive him. The trip to the hospital. The funeral. Consoling my wife. Being consoled by family. Leaving my wife because we are both torn up by the emotional stress of losing a child.

It just goes too far, and I don't know how to stop it.

There is a girl that sits next to me at work. She's a redhead. Occasionally I'll find myself looking in her direction and scanning her up and down. Sometimes I find myself fixated on her red hair. Sometimes I'm fascinated by her shoes. I think you know where I might end up going with this. I get detailed. I get very specific. It honestly feels like hundreds of hours of my life spent up over just a few moments.

I find myself reliving past events in my life. Playing devil's advocate, I obsess over how things might have been different if events played out in my favor. Would I still be alive? Would I be happier? Thirty or forty years of my life suddenly remapped and thought out in an instant. What if I never married my girlfriend from high school? What if I had gone to college and obtained my degree. What if I waited until my mid 20's to move out from home?

I am beginning to think that my existing memories are being replaced with the ones I have fabricated from the distorted realities I create for my amusement or to my dismay. I see flashes of my youth, the early years of my marriage, various people that I have met in my life, and then they go away for a period of time. Sometimes they return, other times they become unrecognizable to me and it is like I'm experiencing events for the first time.