Do not wish your memories away, good or bad, you need them on your journey
Life is a revolving door, today something might be insignificant, but tomorrow it could be of great value
Other than the freedom to live recklessly and pretty much do what I want when I want, one of the things that motherhood has cost me is my good memory. The porridge brain hasn’t quite left me. I find that my long-term memory is still great but short term hasn’t been its sparkly self lately. As things stand, my daughter is lucky I even remember to feed her.
In all fairness though, there is also the fact that I am advancing in years and therefore my memory is doing the things that memories of old people do.
It catches you off guard and is quite unsettling not to be able to remember simple things like who you meant to call when you picked up your phone or the name of the book that you read a week ago and are desperate to recommend to someone.
My darling sisters have by far been the biggest casualties of this new development in my life, I always forget to call them back when I have promised to.
There are many reasons why I write, other than it being the one thing I remember wanting to do from when I was little. If I were to list my reasons, at the very top would be that I write so I can remember.
Given my touch-and-go memory of late, I worry that if I don’t document feelings and events, I may forget them. I often tell people that I am living my best life, the life I always dreamt of, doing the things I always wanted to do. I would hate to forget these feelings that I feel now, to lose the joy of watching things falling in, and at times, out of place.
From what I know about life so far – 33 years is a lot of knowing – is that sometimes answers that we seek in life come from the pockets of memory that we hold in our memory vaults. Life is a revolving door. A single moment in time, one that may have seemed insignificant, may be the one thing you need for something in the future, or even today.
If we allow it, our memory acts as a laboratory for everyday life, a mine, a reserve. With its help, you can help engineer the present and possibly the future.
Memories, unfortunately, are a bit of an oxymoron, you remember the good just as acutely as you do the bad. For example, I remember the delicate features of my mother’s face and her scent just as vividly as I remember the day, and the moment, that the coffin in which she lay was swallowed by the earth.
Whether memories become your happy place or the demons that you live with, they are not going away, or rather, should not be wished away.
The memory of what a burn feels like is what keeps a child from going near a heater ever again.
One reason therapy is so hard is that it implores you to dig deep into your memory vault, sometimes at the memories that you don’t want to deal with, to heal yourself.
Memories are wisdom, they are knowledge and, if allowed, can be your cushion in life. There is a reason why older people are considered wiser; it is because their memory vault is filled with a lot more knowledge.
It is comforting to know that even though you may find yourself in the same position, you can dig into your memories to help navigate out of it.
I am writing this today in the hope that it will serve as a reminder when I need it to. A reminder to allow my memories to carry me when I need them, to humble me when I need humbling and to encourage me when courage has forsaken me.
‘‘ I would hate to forget these feelings that I feel now