On memories

Memories are a funny thing. We all know what a memory is, but we cannot find it, elicit one on command, or pinpoint the area of the brain where memories are formed. Metaphors abound that try to describe a memory: watercolors, clouds, wisps of smoke, lines on a leaf, a bank, file cabinets, books, a safe, writing in the sand. These metaphors attempt to corner something abstract, to capture a memory so it can be put in a jar, examined, measured, recreated, but it is all pointless. I have often wondered where our memories go when we die; do these memories just disappear like water down the drain (see there, another metaphor)? Or do they merge with God, where these memories actually began. I know, confusing, but since God created us, and knows what happened, what is happening, and what will happen, doesn't it make sense to assign the job of memory storage to him?

Regardless, the older I get, the more I wonder about memories: my own, my family's, my friends, and the world at large. Our memories are formed somewhere (we do not know where, although scientists have tried to figure that out) by not just our visual experiences, like photographs, but in a much more complex way. All our senses have a hand in creating memories--our smell, taste, touch, hearing, and sight--and how we feel at that moment. Are we happy? Sad? Worried? Afraid? Excited? At the time a memory is created are we recollecting other memories? Our environment, the weather, family relationships, our health, what is going on around us--is the TV on? Music? something cooking?--weaves tendrils into our memory bank and creates a new one. 

Memories sometimes build on each other, or draw parts from other memories. I look at a photograph of myself as a child, imagine what I was doing then, and then voila! there is a brand new memory; I  place myself into that photograph, and then create a memory of that event, even if I did not remember it happening before I saw the picture. The resulting memory is not real--it was manufactured by looking at a photograph and either someone told me about it, or I made it up; it is a false memory. For example, there is a photograph of me, probably 3 years old, sitting on the grass at my Nana's house, and my sister is sitting on my lap, laying her head on my shoulder, and my mouth is forming a little oval. In my mind, I think I remember that moment, and that I was saying "Aw she loves me." Is it an authentic memory? Who knows? But I have created that memory in my mind (somewhere) so many times it has become real.

We can repress memories of painful or shameful, embarrassing moments (but those memories are always there.) We can also manipulate our memories by our moods and make them larger than life, or practically nonexistent. Other people can twist and bend our memories by talking about how they remember it. And well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning self-described "experts" can take an innocent occurrence, or something that happened to someone else and make it our crosss to bear, or our victory. Three people involved in the exact same situation at the exact same time in the identical place will remember an event, a feeling, a situation, in three (or more!) different ways. We ascribe memories to the wrong people, the wrong time, or the wrong place, or worse yet, create our own memories as a buffer from something too painful to face. 

People recount memories to justify their own actions, reactions and feelings toward someone or something. Memories are great, because they can make us feel wonderful or they can help us not make the same mistake. But they are only memories, and these memories are only real to the person who made theme; my memories are only accurate (to a point) for me, and nothing I do or say to anyone can make them see and relive my memory the way I do. 

So yeah, memories are great, they are different for everyone, they are elusive little buggers that shift and change and hide and pinch. The most important thing about memories though? They are in the past. They are done. They are gone. And to live in the past in our memories, real, imagined, or manipulated, does the memory maker no good.

The moral of the story? Don't trust your memory. Trust God. Love him. Love others.

Form new memories.