Remember that column I wrote a couple of weeks ago, about how everything was pretty much back to normal, and I felt a lot better, and I was in high spirits because I never had to see my hand surgeon again in my life?

Well, I’m sorry, but that column was a lie.

The week I wrote that column was anything but normal. It was, in fact, the opposite of normal, a surreal and jarring slog through empty days. I didn’t feel great. I felt lousy. And sad, and angry, and confused. But also unsettlingly blank at times. As if I didn’t feel anything at all, and never would.

I’d just learned that a friend had died in an accident, and I was badly in need of diversion. My editor told me I could go home, but I decided to keep working, even though I wasn’t getting anything done. “You don’t have to write a column this week,” the managing editor told me. But I decided to write one anyway. After all, I already had an idea. And so I summoned up memories of my good mood from the week before, and got to work.

“What are you writing about?” a friend asked me.

“Oh, how everything is so normal, and I’m so happy,” I said.

“This hasn’t really been a normal week for you,” my friend observed. “And you’re not very happy.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m lying my head off.”

I tell lies in my column all the time, although I don’t usually think of it as lying.

My column isn’t a diary. It isn’t meant to reflect how I feel when I’m writing it. Nor is it a log, in which I record everything that’s ever happened to me. Instead, it’s an opportunity for me to say something, to make a point, even if the point is simply that I love to eat, or that I really like to go to the movies.

In the interest of space and storytelling, I leave out things, and paraphrase, and sometimes even exaggerate small details, such as the quirks and foibles of my family and friends. (I’m waiting for the day someone I care about calls me up and yells at me for misrepresenting everything about them. The way I see it, it’s only a matter of time.)

I’m also aware of how the brain confabulates — how it fills in the gaps in a person’s memory with fabrications that the person believes to be facts. I first learned about this concept in an introductory psychology course in college, and I’ve been unable to trust my memories, or, for that matter, anyone else’s, ever since.

People who have suffered neurological damage confabulate, but so do healthy people. A 2006 article in New Scientist notes, “Children and many adults confabulate when pressed to talk about something they have no knowledge of, and people do it during and after hypnosis. This raises doubts about the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. In fact, we may all confabulate routinely as we try to rationalize decisions or justify opinions. Why do you love me? Why did you buy that outfit? Why did you choose that career? At the extreme, some experts argue that we can never be sure about what is actually real and so must confabulate all the time to make sense of the world around us. . . . Nevertheless, it is an unsettling thought that perhaps all our conscious mind ever does is dream up stories in an attempt to make sense of our world.”

Last week, I went to see fiction writers Richard Russo and Lorrie Moore speak as part of the New York State Writers Institute’s ongoing visiting writer series.

During the question-and-answer session, a member of the audience asked whether a book with strong autobiographical elements can still be considered fiction. Russo replied that, yes, it can be. He then went a step further and said that even if each word of a book is true, it can still be fiction. Fiction, he said, is about imagination — about how the story is told, and what a writer chooses to include and omit, and use of language, and attitude.

(Moore, in what I’m assuming was a joke, said that she tells people that a book can be considered fiction if it contains “17 inventions per page.”)

As I listened, I realized that the line between fiction and nonfiction is thin, and has more to do with intent and presentation than content. I started wondering whether it’s possible to write something that’s factual, but also false. The answer, I think, is yes.

When I glanced at a newspaper account of my friend’s accident, I could see that it was somehow wrong. Every word of it was correct, but the story somehow missed the mark — presented facts and information without quite capturing who this person was, or what had happened, or why. I’m a reporter; I understand the limitations of reporting. But the story still made me cringe. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the truth, either.

Of course, this column contains very little information about my friend, out of respect for his family, and for him. Which is the way it should be, I think. But perhaps, as time passes, the way I talk about the accident will change. Will that make this column less true? I don’t think so. (And if the research on confabulation is to be believed, it can be tough to determine what’s true and what’s not, if you’re relying exclusively on memory.)

After writing this column, I decided to read my column from two weeks ago — the one that was full of lies.

I read about my improving health, and meeting with my pen-pal, and my horrible trip to the Bone and Joint Center.

And you know what?

I now see that every word of that column was true. Even if it didn’t feel that way when I actually wrote it.

Foss Forward makes a weekly appearance in print, in The Gazette’s Saturday Lifestyles section. You can email Sara at sfoss@dailygazette.net.