The Assault on Memory

My head is like Communist Russia--the words and pictures all shifting to fit my liking.

Sometimes, to stop the hurt, I pretend that we never happened. That we never clicked into place. I tell myself that I always knew that it was temporary. I tell myself that I was always pretending--that I knew they wouldn't be there for my wedding, to meet my new friends here, to hold my children.

I rearrange my memories--I take out all the smiles and the laughter. But I do a bad job--those memories that I try to trade out for others, they hold cached pieces of themselves.

By the time it ended, I had to concede that college was not the best four years of my life. Not even close. But it is seductive to pretend that there was nothing there. Seductive, but untrue.

I pretend that we didn't touch, that we weren't close. I pretend that we didn't know each other's ins and outs, that we didn't know how to frustrate each other or how to console each other.

The memories are dark...

and fuzzy...

and so fucking painful. If you pretend they aren't there, sometimes they're not as painful. Sometimes.

I think, though, that the scariest thing these memories bring is the fact that it could happen again. I do everything I can to ensure that it doesn't. And my friends (both new and old-ish)--we're on a slope, picking up speed. Every day, there's something new that falls into place. Whether it's a blog entry that provides a new insight, a spill of laughter that brings tears. Even if it's just me talking, him nodding until I discover something about myself in the mirror of his face. Or a note left on my computer when I've left the lab.

The scariest thing about the turnover of memories is worrying that I'll have to do it again, someday.

But I don't want to. I don't want to edit, or re-haul. I don't want to make things up. Most of all, I don't want to pretend that these moments don't happen.

They do:

They do:

They do: