"Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it." ~ Michel de Montaigne
It's really quite unbelievable how true that it. Every so often, I like to go through my photos or my memory box and just remember. The funny thing is, I don't so much remember the good as I remember the bad. All those stupid arguements or mistakes or times I screwed up just block out all the good memories that I want to remember.
I went through my memory box this morning.
Everything came flooding back as it always does: brief snapshots of happiness, longer scenes that play out in my head in perhaps somewhat fuzzy, yet still incredibly accurate details, and those moments that I wish I could completely erase from my memory.
Some of them are just incredibly stupid little memories that I shouldn't feel bad about anymore but still do (such as my little tiff I had with my best friend in grade three where I told her she was stupid), but some are of the bigger things that really mattered at the time, but shouldn't now yet still give me nightmares. I'd give you some examples, but I'd really rather not. It's just too emotional for me.
Isn't it funny how you remember the bad stuff in such vivid detail, and the good memories are just hazy, bad-quality videos of a time that you were once happy?
I remember playing in freshly-raked leaves with my grandpa when I was 4 years old and we were in Ontario during the fall. But I don't so much remember what was happening as I remember the smells and the colors; the damp and fragrant smell of the leaves, the spicy sent of my granpa's aftershave, the bright reds, oranges, and yellows of the leaves. It's such a hazy memory now, but it's one that I treasure.
And then there are all the memories of my parents fighting when I was little, and I can remember so much of those in such detail that it still scares me sometimes.
What is the moral to the story? Don't go throught the memory box unless you want to be depressed, because the good never comes without the bad. Ever.
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1 comment:
Mare, your past part of what makes you who you are at the present. (Which is a really awesome person) Even if it's not always the best- it's not like you can just not acknowledge it. You always have better and more recent mememories to dwell on too, so your past isn't all bad- just depends how far you go back in your mememory. And hey- at least you learned who not to be from all the times you screwed up, and I'm sure your mistakes aren't unforgivable.
-Hope
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