Memory: the key component for any successful person.
It is memory that gives us traditions, a past, identity. It sets us apart from others. We remember our childhood and holiday traditions we practiced every year without fail. We remember our ancestors who travelled from foreign countries years ago and we somehow define who we are today by their sacrifices, challenges and accomplishments, however real or imagined. We remember the big moments in our lives that shaped us; our first love, our first loss, our first job, our first real responsibilities and occasionally reflect on them to see how far we have come (or not) since then.
You need memory to take you to new places, to motivate you, in your heart, in your mind, across the world or across town.
You can argue that memory is what keeps us alive. Literally, of course, as you must remember to eat, sleep, and drink, not step out in front of traffic and so on. But memory also keeps us alive as a whole collective, as well, in spirit, with life. You must remember laws, routines, and schedules. You must remember work repetition in order to grow and add to success. You need memory to voice language and communicate. It is memory that keeps us on time, knowing where to go, who we are to meet and what we are to do next. Without it, we would be lost.
The present is a future memory, its story is written moment by moment, to be recalled later as fact, fallacy, with truth or distortion. And there is always the past. If you don’t remember the past you are doomed to repeat it, as they say. But at least then it would be a new memory, for some, right?
And the memories we don’t have are equally as powerful as the ones we do and they can drive us to grow, to change, to not repeat an injustice, perceived or not, done to us, in childhood, perhaps. “My father never took me fishing”, he says, “and I missed that. I will take my son so he can have that memory.”…as if certain memories must be had in order to have been raised successfully. Interesting idea although one can never experience all memories thus repeating the cycle of perceived childhood injustices.
We carry all that we have with us as memories, to some extent. Our homes have photos of those we love on the walls to remind us of that love. We have tucked away somewhere old love letters or school yearbooks, a record or an old shirt to remind us of our first loves that we have not seen in years but could not possibly have forgotten or of that concert we went to with our best friend and had the time of our life when we were young, careless and impressionable. We drive past our childhood homes with fondness. We attend high school reunions to be reminded of who we were and to see who we are now and how “far” we have come, how far others have come, changed. We carry our scars, physically or mentally, which remind us too where we have been with pride or with anguish. We wear wedding rings to remind us of our commitments and tattoos to remind us of our achievements, our losses, our favorite things or simply for the love of color and art.
But who are we if we lose our memory? Who are we if we continue to live but don’t know who we are? How do we show the world and the people in it how important our life was if we can’t recall our name?
I have often wondered if our memories are a blessing or a curse and I currently stand divided. What a gift to remember all that you have done; places you have travelled, people you have loved, skills you have learned, children you have had, food you have eaten, music you have made or listened to, conversations you have had, family and friends you have loved, lovers you have experienced, situations you have survived, homes and towns you lived in, photos you have cherished, events you witnessed or participated in, lives you have changed, people who have changed yours.
But for all the love and nostalgia and fondness of memories comes the ache, the pain, of remembering the loss of something great, something experienced, someone experienced.
Loss is a bitter, tragic thing. True loss, soul changing loss, is nearly unbearable and after surviving it, you come away changed, and it is inevitable that you will, sooner or later, mourn who you were, what you had and remember now what can never be again.
It ages you. It weakens you. It makes you tired, to your core, before you have even begun. The ache you feel in your chest, words cannot define with any measurable justice. It is a feeling, a pain, an emptiness, a darkness, a weight. I heard this sadness once from a mother who lost her teenage daughter in a senseless car accident. Her wail was bone chilling, at a decibel not normally felt or heard by humans…it was the sound of a heart dying and I will never ever, could never ever, forget it.
My heart has made that sound twice and while the stories are my own for now, I am forever changed. Is the new me a better me for having experienced that or am I a sadder me who must also remember and mourn who I was and what part of me is lost to time forever?
My son is 9 weeks old and was born to me in what I will say was the hardest year of my life. I am, at the moment, a blank canvas where, through a lifetime of experiences, he will paint a picture of who I am. Will his memory of me resemble what I actually look like? Will he pick up and paint highlights of who I was before, as if that light and color is never truly lost or hidden? Or will he paint a duller version of who I am, the only me he has known? Or, perhaps, by the time I see his painting of me I will have forgotten who I was, through time and aging, and through his eyes I will rediscover myself, my history, my legacy. If I have forgotten my life, my past, and lost my memory, in the end will it change who I am or who I was all those years ago?