The Battle for Memory

This is it, Joel. It's gonna be gone soon.

I know.

What do we do?

Enjoy it.

(from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a film I highly recommend.)

~~~

Cold walks through college campuses.

Warm kisses under an Australian sky.

Holding hands with a girl I hardly know.

And those conversations--you know the ones; when you're talking and shivering and can feel your next words as if you're jumping over a cliff. And then you jump, knowing that you really have no choice.

Not one of these memories of mine has accounted for anything that can be shown today. Not one. Some of my favorite recollections, some of my favorite emotions and feelings and fears (we all love our fears, in strange ways, don't we?)--what are they worth?

Not a single memory includes a person with whom I've been in any kind of recent contact. Nothing of these (and so many other) formative moments survived. Nothing save the images and feelings etched in my mind.

I wouldn't trade them...the awkward beginnings, the exciting leaps of faith, the painful separations...wouldn't trade a one. My successes and failures, my ups and downs, my moments of courage and points of weakness--these moments are me. They define me. Without them I am nothing. Empty. Tabula Raza.

Salinger, in the voice of Franny, says "I'm sick of not having the courage to be an absolute nobody."

Very few of our lives will result in epic love stories, in stories of global revolution or life-changing achievement. But we each have our own tapestry, woven by our own choices and values and character.

I am what I am.

Am I happy with that?

...shrug...

I guess.

I do love holding and cherishing my memories. There are so many scenes I feel like I could step right back into. My first-grade classroom. My grandmother's house with the sparkly ceilings. My church's bus on a long, rambling youth trip. A game of dominoes with my Grandfather. Sometimes I ache to step right back into those moments--to enjoy those people just a little bit more, to compare my notes with reality and see how I varnished the truth.

When I think of these things I wonder what memories my dad wishes he could step back into. I wonder what my Grandmother thinks of in moments like these?

I wonder what it would take for me to get the courage to ask? I bet those conversations would become a memory I'd likewise cherish down the road.