Sometimes I’m surprised at the things I remember. I don’t know what’s normal in the realm of memories, but I have to believe that my ability to recall random things from the past is in hyperdrive.
I just had a visit with a friend that I spent quite a bit of time with in high school. She has recently moved back to her parents’ house while her family’s new home is being built and walking into that house that I haven’t set foot in in about 20 years just caused images from my teenage years to flood back.
I remembered endless games of “truth or dare” and hikes through the woods in the middle of the night to paint her brother’s face with makeup and bring back a pair of his boxers to prove we’d done it. I remembered late night cow tipping excursions and dance moves we made up to various songs. I would truly be mortified if any of that was videotaped!
I wish, sometimes, that I was still 14 years old. I think that those were the best times of my life. However, my friend seemed to have forgotten so many of the things that make me nostalgic. My keen sense of memory is a curse. I wouldn’t miss feelings that I didn’t remember existed. I wish there were some way to copy all of the images and audio from all the things from my past that cloud up my present to a disc. Then I could erase them from my mind and only let them surface when I popped that disc into a player. I may even forget where I put the disc!
My question… do I spend my future trying to regain the awesomeness of my past? Or am I supposed to create a new set of memories? I’m stuck somewhere in the middle.
Right now, I’d just like to put a filter on what my brain recalls. It would make it much easier to sleep.
