I Wanna Remember to Remember to Forget You Forgot Me

[Random thoughts I had to get out of my head at 2am last night. A legit post will be coming as usual by midnight tomorrow]

Memory is a strange and daunting thing; a strange and daunting choice. The things we choose to cling to and the ones we throw away without a second thought.

Childhood is a strange and daunting thing, the memories we choose to cling to. I remember a thousand invisible worlds unfolding in our one acre backyard. I remember tumbling loose-limbed and carefree; remember how sad my stepmother looked the only time she told me I was beautiful. Like she was judge and jury and I’d just been handed a life sentence. I remember how I never felt beautiful with my crooked teeth and unbrushed hair and clothes that never fit quite right. I remember how much she cried, how much the baby cried, how much I cried because we never fit quite right.

Childhood is a strange and daunting thing. I remember a pullout couch in the living room of our one-bedroom trailer. Remember sleeping, the sound of my mother’s breathing and my sister’s breathing filling the empty places. I remember the day we had nothing to eat but chocolate cake. Remember how it seemed like such a treat, even when we were still hungry? I remember diet soda and ramen noodles and family packs of Walmart popsicles in the freezer. I remember the time we spent our rent money on water balloons and a plastic pool, the way the sunshine felt on my wet skin, running barefoot in the front lawn.

Memory is a strange and daunting choice, the things we throw away without a second thought. The layers we sift through to recover them. I remember the brand new house, the one he built with so much hope. That empty blueprint waiting to be filled with memories, waiting for family dinners and movie nights. Doorways waiting for us to stand soldier straight to have our height marked against their solidarity. The sound of frogs and crickets in the soft swamp I was always afraid of. I was always afraid. We dreamed of ice skating in the winter. I wonder if those doorways hold onto our memory, or if a new family has filled that blueprint with their own hopes and dreams. I want that house to witness happiness.

The things we choose to cling to so tenaciously, strange and daunting, shape the people we become. We are all the human being stories we tell ourselves, a thousand words/images/gestures sewn clumsily into the patchwork history of our skins. Hoping our plots start to take form, that the storyline doesn’t start to unravel with the progression of each storyline. There are so many characters to keep track of, each the protagonist of their own stories. Each the center of their own memories. The only lens I’ll ever see clearly through is my own. The only memories that fit are our own. A strange and daunting thing.  

 All my love.

-b