Notes

Memories -May 10 2014

Have you ever sat in bed at night staring out the window and listening to the rain and realizing with sinking terror that soon the rain will be gone and the scenery all around you will change and the places that remind you of a distant past will look different... And as the cold rainy season fades into summer, so will the memories that are carried on the wind, on the feeling of rain against your face, or the cold pale light of the wintery sun just barely lighting up your world. They'll dry up with the rain until all the images in your mind that you hold on to, every memory that's always been crystal clear, the sight, the sound, the touch, the smell, that feeling; the kind of memories that seem so real, you feel like you can almost reach out and grasp them, the ones you desperately want to relive, just one more time, just to remember what it was like to be hopeful, to feel something, to see a tinge of color in a gray world... until the pictures you see whenever you close yours eyes, all blur together, so instead of watching your past go by through your mind and losing yourself in a memory, it all just passes before you in a senseless and painful jumble. Those flashbacks bring regret, reminding you how bitter mistakes can be, but as long as they're there, at least you knew you actually lived at one time or another. It feels like if you can remember it clearly, maybe the past isn't gone yet, maybe it can still be salvaged. But with the change of seasons and setting, it's inevitable. And even when the rain comes back, and the Christmas lights glow again, and you walk through the same halls once more, it will never be the same. No more warm fuzzy feeling, no more wishful thinking. Everything that was once clear will now be nothing but a nagging ache, dragging behind you like the ghost of a faded past from what seems like a different life. And what used to kill you slowly on the inside but was also your only comfort, will be all but gone.
Those days will blur together into just a sense of time passing, all the individual moments that you remember will melt into a swirl of emotions that you used to feel. You won't be able to tell which ones actually happened and which ones come from nightmares that only felt real. Sometimes it will all just feel like one long nightmare, too surreal to be true. With nothing to else hold on to, you'll watch in terror as everything spirals out of your grasp, and the only things you will have to bring any of it back are the keepsakes that remind you of only the bad parts. Everything else just kind of becomes washed out, like an old painting. And on your next trip down memory lane, what if there's nothing to see anymore? Some say your past doesn't define who you are, but it really does. Without certain pieces of your past, you're just a ghost, a silhouette of a person, empty on the inside. Have you ever felt so helpless, knowing there's nothing you can do but watch as one of the only things that actually matters to you, slip away? It's the worst feeling, to sit there and feel time passing, seconds ticking away, knowing every moment takes you further and further away from what once was.