That is the horror of it.

The revision was not a lie I was telling other people; it was a lie I had told myself so thoroughly that it had replaced the truth in my own memory, seamlessly, leaving no visible seam.

And I understand now the mechanism of it, because I have had to.

Memory is not a recording.

It is a story we tell ourselves, retold slightly differently each time, and every retelling is an opportunity for the ego to make one small, self-flattering edit — to shift a little blame, to soften a harsh thing we said, to recast ourselves a degree closer to the wronged party and a degree further from the one who did wrong.

No single edit feels like a lie.