Memory

In the beginning of this journey I had the constant fear that I'd forget. Forget his face, his smile, the shape of his hands, the sound of his voice, his sense of humor, the way his dimples showed up whenever he was trying too hard to be serious. I was afraid I'd forget everything. This is not an unnecessarily unfounded concern. I've forgotten most of the people I went to High School with, and don't even remember the time period before that - the hazy first fifteen years of my life are depicted in my mind as bright flashes of sunlight and senses of lingering emotion more than as real memories. I was so afraid that CJ would become that: a set of out-of-focus pictures dancing around in the background of my mind.

I needn't have worried. Now, I'm drowning in my memories. I see him everywhere I look, both right in front of my face when I'm sitting alone and out of the corner of my eye when I'm with others. I hear his voice in my dreams right after I wake up, and everytime I answer the phone. Everytime I come home and call out, I hear him answer. I hear his running commentary on the inside of my head. I feel him breathing beside me when I sleep at night. I'm haunted by him, but not in the romantic Ghost way. More in the tortured Scott Summers way. His being gone just makes the voids where he used to be pronounced enough that they've become entities in and of themselves.

You know in the movies, when they show someone standing in an empty room, and then some section of the room lights up and a flashback scene happens while they look on? Usually in a soft focus lens, in slightly slowed motion with a bright filter on - you know, for atmosphere. It's like that. I walk down the driveway every morning, and there we are in our first kiss. I walk in our old room and he's sitting there at the computer, knee bopping up and down to keep the rhythm of his thoughts. I'll be cooking in the kitchen, and he'll come up and put his arms around me, tell me how he loves me and how glad he his that I'm his wife. He passes me on his bike at least once a day. I'll be at the movies with friends and see the two of us one row down, holding hands with my head on his shoulder. He's everywhere he's not. He's with me always except I can't touch him or talk to him.

I remember everything, but there are days when I wished I didn't. Remembrance is a double edged sword: reminding us why we loved in the first place, but also why it hurts so much when that love is gone. This is Shakespeare's ancient quandary: better to have loved and lost? Somedays the loss hurts enough to make you wonder... there was a book I read once - long enough ago that I can't remember the title or author (see? there's my awesome memory at work yet again!). In the story, the man is coping with the death of his wife sometime in the near future. He runs a business where people can plug themselves into virtual realities (like the holodeck on Star Trek, kind of). Anyway, the machine can also download a person's thoughts and memories onto a program, erasing them forever from our minds. Towards the end of the story, the man winds up downloading all of his life from the time he met his wife forward into the computer. He "wakes up" bewildered to find a hand-written note that goes something like this pinned on his chest: You are a good man. You've had a good life and nothing bad ever happened to you. Go out and live the rest of it in the same fashion...

Makes me wonder. Not worth it, I figure. I don't imagine the pain of loss ever gets bad enough that you'd rather not have danced at all (to misquote Garth Brooks). But just the same, I sincerely look forward to the day where the past isn't more real than the present, when my memories are sweet and kind friends instead of harsh and painful masters. Experience makes us, in large part, who we are. And it's what we've gone through, survived or done before that defines who we are today. If you like who you are, then it stands to reason that you have to appreciate all the thorns that brought you here. Like Kirk, in the Final Frontier: I need my pain! (Wow... two Star Trek references in one blog... I am such a loser...) In many ways my previous hurts are what define me, and I wouldn't be who I am without the lessons learned. While none of us want the bad hands that get dealt, in the end I hope I can appreciate the changes wrought by them. At least I don't have to worry anymore that I'll forget - I suppose that's a gift in and of itself.

Love to all, blessed be.

Tamsen