I hoard memories. It seems to be an Achilles' heel of mine; I don’t let go. Or rather, there are things I generally am able to 'let go' of, in the way the phrase itself lends itself to every other philosophical doctrine we encounter with regards to life itself. But I do admit, I’ve got a thing for memories.
Usually, the reason is that I love being able to go back and relive the actual moment. Tangibly, this entails saving snippets of conversations in writing, or memorializing emails and suchlike. The reader may be familiar with my subset blog “Golden Memories” where I do exactly that. This blog is a resurrection of another thread I used to maintain where I recorded almost everything and anything that, for the most part, made me laugh.
And one may rightly observe that that’s not such a bad thing. It’s a lovely sentiment to be able to keep such memories. But there’s the flip side of the coin – the happenstance of coming across memories that unearth the negative memories. Those ghosts of the past which haunt us consciously and, quite usually, subconsciously.
The natural inclination then, is to wonder why even keep such things. I have no answer for that, simply because my own common sense tells me – flashing in neon lights – Delete! Delete! Delete! However it’s quite much more complicated, when one realizes that even innocuous memorabilia that seem to be beautiful snippets of good times can be connecting dots to an equally bad set of times. In fact, the contrast can be quite stark and harrowing.
Sometimes a good moment is couched in between or in the midst of the worst times… and even when one goes into that phase of reminiscence, when the emotions start flowing as you relive those moments, sometimes neighbouring emotions from those times return, unannounced.
And then you have those bittersweet moments, when something you preserved or something that simply brings back moments that, at the time, were absolutely memory-worthy – hilarious moments with friends, inside jokes that had you holding your tummy with tears of mirth running down your face – those memories that only stay in that haunted past simply because today the truth is so far away from it, so much has changed.
Those achingly poignant memories that make you sigh or smile wryly, or even bring tears to your eyes. And yet, we continue to move onward, losing and gaining, and changing. Everytime we form those bonds that make you think that 50 years later, you’ll definitely want to come back and revisit these moments, so of course, why not preserve them for posterity (for of course, if we are going onward our memories are inevitably going to go through that infamous pattern of eroding).
Forgive me if I sound morbid, but this same train of thought, or rather not simply the thoughts but the truth of experience that upholds the very thought, has often made me resist the phenomenon of forming new bonds. I have had phases where I decided that I couldn’t bear the pangs of again looking back at friendships that had deteriorated, and therefore wouldn’t fall into the trap again.
I’m not in that phase right now, neither am I in the opposite side of jumping at any opportunity to make friends. I guess I can say I am in a comfortable position of having garnered some wisdom through all these years by nursing the drink of moderation.
The last few days, yes, I’ve been overwhelmed by going through old memories. Some made me feel absolutely grateful for life itself, some which despite that gratitude, still managed to reduce me to sobs, simply because of how deeply evocative they were, and still are. Some memories are just that way, firmly entrenched in the way you feel and think today. Nevertheless, despite my tears and despite the embittered tinge of loss over time, I’m still able to recognize something. And that something is that, incredibly, in today itself, there do stand a handful of people who have traversed that spacetime from memory to reality. That despite whatever upheavals, or how much other people have come and gone, however far we’ve become or less we’ve been able to keep in touch, they still exist.
And to exist, I don’t only mean they live. To exist is an attribute of personal perspective; they exist in my mental space, and more so in my emotional space. They are special. And I guess, that’s the whole point. I mean, you cannot expect to grab a whole handful of sand and expect to keep hold of every grain, right?
Likewise, it’s not just the special people who I cherish today, but the special memories. Achilles heel and all. Sometimes you’ve just got to know when to let go, to truly accept , some grains are better off gone with the wind.
