Whether or not I’d like to be (and I change my mind about it often), I’m a sentimental person. Part of my post-modern mind is stuck in the Stone Age-instinct that objects have some kind of special power or energy connected to the people, events, or places associated with them, and most everyone I’ve known who’s changed the trajectory of my life in some way is represented by an object I keep scattered around my room, such as the wrapper of a wine bottle, a fragment of jasper, some “get well soon” cards, a bullet and a plush cat. The vast majority of my existence right now is a memory, and this is one way I access those memories and treat them as somehow sacred. I’m sure you have your own way.
This is the time for me to learn how to make and treat memories. Unless I get drafted into World War III, there probably won’t be another era in my life where I form such close yet fragile friendships. I’m a college student in my twenties, my life is still taking shape and it’s the same for nearly all of my friends -- this renders many of my relationships unstable. Many of the people I’ve grown to know will be, or already have been, separated from me by distance, mostly for work or college transfers. Some of these people are important enough to me that I’ve visited them a few times. A few, though, fall into that bittersweet spot of being close enough to miss, but not quite enough to visit, and I’ll probably never see them again.
Time, like death, seems unnatural and strange to us, which is itself strange -- why isn’t it something we’re accustomed to, or something we’re built for? Think of all the songs that want to make a moment, a party, or a feeling, last “all night” or “forever.” They feel like melancholy indictments of reality.
Time, according to people from St. Augustine and Boethius to Vonnegut and Einstein, might be an illusion. My little museum collection of talismans might be unnecessary, because I’m living the moments that gave them their meanings forever, in little corners of the one big moment. The moments I’m contemplating, these objects and the memories that come along with them will be rendered ironic, in a pleasant way, by the fact that what I’m remembering is right next door -- much how my worst, most painful moments will be rendered ironic when they sit side by side with my loveliest and most joyful memories, serving only to make them more beautiful through contrast.
Memories are more than half of who we are. We should honor ourselves by honoring them. Gratefully take lessons from the bad ones and treasure the good ones without destroying them by clinging to them or worshiping them, keeping in mind that the fact that something is over doesn’t make it a joke. We shouldn’t mourn or regret memories -- just smile at them and turn back to the present moment, the one we can still control. Just be thoughtful and bold about whatever you do, in case you’re doing it forever.
