Memory

I find that it is only in retrospect that I truly consider the realness of things. I am never brought to question authenticity in the moment of happening. Everything appears to be real as it is present, and is it not true that existence proves reality? The mysterious and somewhat frightening fact about the passage of time is that it gives us pause about existence. Emotions are fleeting wherefore memories are fleeting, and once we decide to hold onto an emotion, we find that it slips through our fingers ever more swiftly. Without the emotion, the memory ceases to be.

This is what makes it impossible to conjure a memory in its realest form. The memories that remain with us come to be the most real, and those that fade away are doubted as ever being actual. This inevitability is enigmatic and unfortunate because it skews our perception of significance. Memorable equals significant; forgettable equals unremarkable. In fact, because experiences and sensations are only genuine as they are happening, their being malleable to us makes them malleable in actuality. We interpret things differently over time, but we as vital entities do not give ourselves enough credit in this regard. The moment that experiences become memories, they enter our personal domain, and we have the power to alter their very being. Not only do we have the power to do so, but we are bound as such. Time emulates change, and time, as we all know, is more permanent and uncontrollable than anything else in this universe.

When we come to a juncture that seems to be a critical one, a graduation, a wedding, a funeral, for example, we often assess the probability that certain memories will stand the test of time. We will view these memories differently, of course, each time we visit them, and therefore, they themselves will change. But will they remain, at least, in some sort of changed form? Each of us will remember small, seemingly insignificant things for reasons we cannot explain. Similarly, we are perplexed how moments that shape us so substantially are often lost in time. De facto, this phenomenon is not as paradoxical as it appears. Our minds are structured in such a way that we, in some manner, remember all there is to remember. The little things jump out as memories, and we do not waste our power of recall on the “bigger” experiences because they resurface and attend to us in tangible forms every day. A moment that is consequential enough to change our very form of being never reaches the condition of memory because it never surrenders existence.

Memories, therefore, are only snippets of sentimentality purely for our amusement. Everything that is real is not a memory, and memories, when they become memories, are no longer real. That is not to say that remembrances were not once existent, but it is natural that they be replaced in the course of time. In this fashion, when I find myself at a turning point in my life, I find it valuable to view experiences and moments as interconnected, fluid, and enduring. Nothing disappears, it simply evolves just as human beings do, and this extinguishes the finality and sorrow in goodbyes.