I Must Have Forgotten

Season 1 Finale: Episode 22; A Quilt, a Journal, and Intermission This season has been a look back at the first act of a life, stitched together from small moments and quiet turning points: laughter that lifted me and losses that transformed me, all leading to the ritual ending of graduation night. That night marked the curtain call for everything I’d ever known… and the beginning of the pause bef...

Episode 21: Muddy Night, Borrowed Dress The last year of high school is a transition in every sense of the word. We spend that time collecting memories, preparing for whatever comes next, and learning how to be who we are without the people we've grown to depend on. Part of that transition came through two nights: one hilarious and slightly dangerous, and the other uncomfortable in ways that had m...

Episode 20: Two Scars, Inches Apart As we make our way along life’s pathways, our footsteps change with us. Sometimes they're quick and sure, sometimes slow and careful. But every now and then, a misstep of our own puts someone else in harm’s way. And when we realize that our mistake caused an injury, we have to reassess our journey and grow in a different direction: to move with more awareness, t...

Episode 19: Hayrides and the Blizzard at Dawn Being in a vulnerable place can draw all kinds of people toward you: the helpers, the opportunists, and the ones who simply recognize the ache you're carrying. Junior year put me in a position to relearn a lesson I already knew, even if I'd rather not have had to. In the middle of it all, I collected a handful of moments, some funny, some empowering, t...

There are seasons when the things we choose, the new commitments, the challenges, the hustle and bustle, are really just ways of protecting delicate parts of ourselves we’re not ready to examine...to confront. In my junior year, I leapt into something new that felt big and important, and that carried me for a while. It gave me a place to put my energy, and maybe even my heart. But eventually, I ha...

Episode 17: Mean Boys and the Bathroom Cake Growing up means learning how to belong, when to let people in, when to hold your ground, and how to recognize, and inhabit, moments that mark a beginning... or an end. My sixteenth birthday was the culmination of a nearly perfect year, and a milestone that showed me I was exactly where I was supposed to be. ----- If you've ever wondered whether the smal...

Episode 16: Paperbacks and Prom Tenth grade is, in every sense, a crossroads. Some of us chase new interests, some of us take on responsibilities we never wanted, and some of us learn, with shock and sorrow, that life isn’t as certain as we once believed. My own tenth‑grade year held all of that: a loss that reshaped the ground beneath us, a night I had dared to dream about, and squeaky creepers w...

Episode 15: Our Crime Syndicate Induction The day we felt like we were officially part of the whole came before sunrise, in strange places, stumbling through a dance we didn't know the steps to. It was mortifying. It was embarrassing. And maybe it didn't carry the profound meaning we thought it did, but it became part of our history. Part of our lore. Part of who we were becoming. And we wouldn't...

Episode 14: Two-a-Days and Polka The first few months of tenth grade are nothing short of a growth spurt. New experiences, new classes, and new people, all nudging us toward adulthood. Ready or not. Sometimes we get in over our heads. Sometimes we fall on our faces and laugh it off. Sometimes we grit our teeth and level up. And sometimes we're carried along on a cloud we never saw coming. And when...

Episode 13; Two Trips and a Cryptic Message The foibles, triumphs, and small humiliations of eighth and ninth grade were exactly the seasoning I needed before stepping into the wider world of high school. Those two years gave me more than I understood at the time. Two unforgettable school trips stitched together the kind of friendships that mattered then, even if some of them have faded with time....

Episode 12: Mysteries of Secretaries and Rock Thirteen is a crossroads: that strange age when we want to be held and protected, yet ache to be older than we are. The fall and winter of 1979 became exactly that for me. It was a hinge year where innocence, bravado, and bewilderment collided. This was the season when a school secretary quietly kept me safe. When a rock concert swallowed me whole. Whe...

Episode 11: Firelight and Firsts Thirteen was a time lit from within. New experiences, unexpected delights, and the first quiet hints that we might be more than the generic selves we thought we were. A single moment can loosen a certainty long held; a spark of perception can rewrite the stories we believe about ourselves. It is a rare discovery to see our reflections the way someone else sees us....

Episode 10: Oops and Other Anthems Even as a child, I was the keeper of family history and stray doodads...the tiny artifacts no one else thought to save. I still carry them. Seventh grade, with all its awkward ups and downs, and the disorientation of multiple uprootings, brought me a new companion: music. A new means of processing life. A new way to define myself. Both the music and the doodads h...

Episode 9: Mischief, Mortality, and Michigan In Indiana’s woods and on a Michigan farm, mischief flirted with mortality. Childhood summers shimmered with laughter and thrill, kinships flickered and faded, and memory gathered the echoes. Campfires crackled, horsehair clung; river water swallowed, onion rings flew. Each small moment stitched into the fabric of becoming. Joy and danger entwined, teac...

Episode 8: Echoes and Artifacts Tables and swimming pools, paper dolls and record players — objects that carried recollections and experiences. Relics of history and heart, now gone. To honor the things that shaped us, as if they were characters in our stories, is the undertaking of memoir, the resonance of becoming. Our memory is a repository of echoes and artifacts; the scratches, the chlorine,...

Episode 7: Of Tender Strength; Of Wild Hearts The healing after Fowler carried us forward, but not without speedbumps. Snow and speed, the shock of pain, and the quiet bravery that rose in its wake. Nights blurred with laughter and rebellion, and doors opened to more than just the dark of midnight. This episode moves between tenderness and wildness, between the ache of change and the thrill of mis...

I Must Have Forgotten Episode 6: Three Kinds of Gravity Little kids have limited control over their lives. They have to navigate the heaviness of the things that make them feel small. Loss. Treachery. Embarrassment. Fowler, Indiana in 1975 was a tornado of three rites of passage. Three tests of spirit. Three chances to learn what really matters. In the end, we don’t have to be perfect. The people...

Episode 5: Rollerskates and Suitcases The three vignettes in this episode aren’t just memories—they’re seismic shifts. Moments when the earth moved beneath a child’s feet. When gossip traveled faster than a teenager scrambling for a couple’s skate. When silence spoke louder than any explanation. Reflections on what it means to be chosen, to be left behind, and to keep breathing when it feels impos...

Episode 4: Geysers and Goodbyes A rogue Coca-Cola can. A ruined day at the park. A farewell that echoed longer than expected. This episode revisits a family reunion gone spectacularly wrong and the quiet grief of leaving behind a beloved school, a best friend, and the first place that ever felt like home. From cherry delight to fluoride treatments, from pop-top door curtains to half-toast theology...

A train passes in the distance, and suddenly we’re back—back in the hush of the early 1970s, where middle children learned to disappear and houses held their breath. Country nights glowed with fireflies in our hands, and cows sometimes meandered behind the backyard fence. Unbothered and inoffensive. This episode unfolds in three quiet vignettes: — Train Sounds : lullabies of country life, steady a...

Episode 2: Claustrophobia and Backbone Rock It wasn't supposed to be about me, but it turned out to be a pivotal moment. Fear can come from experiences, uncertainty, or even exhaustion. And hurting someone isn’t always intentional. Sometimes it’s the result of a prank, the texture of a scratchy wool blanket, the moment you couldn’t move and someone laughed. Sometimes it’s realizing that your brave...

Episode 1: The Creek, the Boot, and the Beginning A boot in the creek. A fragment that wouldn’t let go. In this first episode of I Must Have Forgotten , Beth traces the quiet origins of both herself and of these chapters—where memory bubbled, stories were reclaimed, and the body of work began to take shape. It’s a beginning marked not by ambition, but by curiosity and love. Through sound, reflecti...

Wildcat Creek took my boot. Then whispered a question I haven’t stopped asking: Do the small moments of our lives matter? This podcast begins with two little girls at the creek--and from there, all the fragments that make up a life. It’s a personal memoir rooted in ordinary moments—untethered joy, un-self-conscious grief, precious memory, and the stories we carry. I Must Have Forgotten is a podcas...