How tangible is a memory?
They were something that happened to us, once upon a time. Or someone else. They had a buildup, a release, a reaction, and a return to equilibrium. All we are left with is the emotion that moment imparted upon us. Emotions change over time, so do the memories as well?
Thinking of a loving moment, a heartbreak, a fight. Space and time contract and slow, with the sole focus being you and another. A connection made or shattered, we continue afterwards with a part of the soul altered. The inability to control our inner workings drives us in unpredictable ways that we subconsciously resist or follow, following the connection made, or shattered. Are the first feelings of love less powerful at 14 than at 41? We laugh, dismissively, of our youth. Characterized by adolescent attraction,
embarrassment starts at our eyes as we close our them, reminiscing of a foolish action powered by a love unrealized. Shamed, we endure a reverie of a time we were cruel, to a partner or friend or family. We become calloused the happy moments and ever more alienated by the unpleasant. Do these memories rewind in the heads of the other parties? Are they as tormented by these fragments of time that have grown in unforeseen directions within us? If we were to see, like a film, the memories of the other, would we even recognize what happened? Is it the same event?
Is it possible to actively embrace all the moments in a thankful way?
Love and heartbreak, spite and gratitude, all live together in an ever-adapting world within us. They can choose to drive us to despair or great heights. Does something that ends badly take every happy memory that it provided and destroy them? Flowers are loved in the spring, regardless of the way they die in the fall. Leaves are cherished the most in their autumn, right before they glide to the ground. Perspective is always needed before appreciation can be felt. Why can it feel so hard to apply perspective to our memories even when we know it is needed? Do we wait for our own Autumn before we can love our experience?
Today is a good one to be thankful for perspective. A good day to be thankful for the memories that evolve and drive us, thankful for the relationships alive and relationships gone, thankful for those who we make new memories with, and the ones with which they were made, all in a past that exists different to every one of us. And lastly, thankful for memories yet to be made.
Happy Thanksgiving!