Everybody else is doing it, so why can’t I?

We have these memories that we feel compelled to share to someone, anyone who would listen, regardless of context, regardless of whether they mean anything, whether other people care.

But we don’t need to. We don’t have to. We don’t need to hear the words come out of our mouths to make the memories even more substantial. As if verbalizing them would give them legs, make them real. They already are, in our heads, in another life.

These are wholly mine, these are my properties. They are my own slices of space and time and I will always have these. I should never be ashamed.

If I lose them I will never find them again; no amount of storytelling from witnesses will help me recover the sensation of the event.

***

For some reason lately I’ve been obsessing about how other people with whom I share memories with perceive those memories. Like, I’m pretty sure there is an expansive disconnect between how I remember certain events and how other people who were there - friends, exes, classmates, whatever - remember. And sometimes I tend to relive every single second, every word, every turn of the head, every action in my head, wonder what I could have done different.

But now I get it: These are my memories. No one is going to fucking tell me how to relive them. If I change them in my head they are gone from me forever. If I forget because it’s too humiliating then I lose them to the ether. That’s how I forgot a substantial part of my 21st and 22 years. That’s almost two years I will never get back.

Places and people and smells and events.

***

P. Noval and your uncle’s dinghy apartment. Laying on your bed next to you looking at the ceiling listening to what, Smashing Pumpkins? Third Eye Blind?, wondering if we were going to kiss (we never did).

***

Dottie said you looked at her Multiply account, of her pictures of when I was back home last January. Did you see me? Do you remember anything? Do you remember my friends, who loved you unconditionally when they knew that I did, too. How did you manage to conjure up so much hate so quickly? Not that I was completely blameless but I think the hostility was disproportionate. Now I know that the situation was that we never learned anything from each other; I was unaware at the time that we could; that we were supposed to. I supposed there is a possibility that one day in the future I will hear from you, maybe your daughter. I will find out if I am a forbidden word.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 9.50.pm and is filed under Mellon Collie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.