Memory

We like to think of our memories as something solid -- an unalterable, unshakeable foundation on which our current selves stand. 

But memory is anything but solid. Memory is a slippery, deceptive thing -- much more like sand than stone. Those remembrances from our past that we think of as fact are usually far from accurate representations of what really happened. They are colored by our own perception, the details eroded and changed by the passage of time. However unintentionally, details from the moments that get filed away in our memory banks are omitted and altered to better suit the narrative, the story we tell ourselves about our pasts.

I think that's why, despite being an avid reader, I've always viewed the genre of memoir with some degree of skepticism and distrust. If memory can (and does) lie to us, if our recollections are limited to our own narrow perception, it gives me little faith in the accuracy of memoirs. It's why I prefer fiction, which does not pretend to be anything but a product of the writer's imagination, and non-fiction, which is rife with data and evidence that can be fact-checked and proven. Memoir lies somewhere in the murky in-between place, sometimes presenting itself as non-fiction, when really it is probably much more imagination than fact.

As a kid, I was nostalgic to a fault. I guess I was always an old soul, and maybe from a young age I understood that childhood was fleeting, that it would be over in the blink of an eye and that someday I'd miss it. And so, even as a kid, I was already looking back on years gone by wistfully; every milestone that passed by was another thing I'd never again experience for the first time. I found myself hanging on to photos and notes and other relics from those years with the ferocity of someone who did not want to let go of the past. 

Thankfully, I mostly grew out of that. Adulthood and especially parenthood have a way of keeping us rooted firmly in the present. There's no longer any time to sit around dreaming about the future or pining for the "good old days" -- there's only the here and now, taking things one day at a time, rarely taking the time to glance in the rearview mirror or to look too far down the road. And that's probably a good thing, because the here and now is where life happens. 

But lately, the past has been creeping its way into my consciousness, long-forgotten memories appearing once again in my periphery. Why now? I think there are a few reasons: 1) The pandemic: Like most of us, I was moving swiftly through life before March, on an upward trajectory, my calendar filled with plans and obligations. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, things came grinding to a halt. Anytime life as we know it is shaken up, it forces us to look inward again, and the quiet of quarantine definitely gave a perfect opportunity for that. 2) Loss: My dad passed away in April. I think when we lose a loved one, there's in an innate desire to visit the past, because when someone dies they become preserved only in our memories. 3) The diaries/journals: As I mentioned here, I recently found my childhood diaries and read through them all. My accounts of past events brought the memories rushing back in a more intense way than I could have anticipated. More on that later. 4) Writing: In order to write fiction well and build more believable characters, we must sometimes call upon the thoughts and emotions of our own past experiences. I had to do a lot of that, especially when writing some of my younger characters.

“Writers remember everything...especially the hurts. Strip a writer to the buff, point to the scars, and he'll tell you the story of each small one. From the big ones you get novels. A little talent is a nice thing to have if you want to be a writer, but the only real requirement is the ability to remember the story of every scar.

Art consists of the persistence of memory.” 

― Stephen King, Misery

My experience of reading the diaries, especially, was a study in the mysterious nature of memory. Before reading them, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what my formative years looked like. I thought I could have pretty easily mapped out the major events in my early life, and even fill in a lot of the extraneous details. And to some extent, this was true -- but there was also a lot that surprised me, a lot of times I learned that my memory had misled or betrayed me. The moments I'd captured in the diaries, and my experience reading them, seemed to fall into one of the following categories:

• Some moments, especially those I've deemed very impactful (either for positive or negative reasons), were mapped out in the diary exactly the way I remembered. I didn't need a diary entry to tell me about my first date or my first breakup, my first day of high school or first time on stage; the details of those events, as well as the emotions that accompanied them, are still easily accessible in my memory bank. It was validating to read these entries and see that my memory had captured the details pretty accurately.

• There were many moments I had completely forgotten about, but reading about them brought them rushing right back. Many of the memories that fell into this category were things that had slipped through the sieve of time because, in the grand scheme of things, they weren't all that important -- things like arguments with friends, short-term crushes, random parties or school events or conversations.

• There were also some details that I'd mis-remembered. There were friends that I thought had taken up a large chunk of my childhood, only to discover that I'd really only hung out with them for one or two school years. Conversely, there were some friends I'd spent a lot more time with than I remembered. Sequences of events, especially, often came as a surprise. Frequently, we remember what happened, but not precisely when or in what order. Because diaries are, by nature, written sequentially, it was interesting and sometimes surprising to put together the random recollections from my past into an actual timeline.

• Most surprising were the events or moments that I cannot remember at all. Reading about them in the diaries was almost like reading about someone else's life. Try as I might to dig into the muddled depths of my memory bank, I cannot evoke even the weakest of recollections of certain things that happened.

That last bullet point brings to light what is perhaps the most unsettling, but also the most telling, aspect of memory. No matter who we are, no matter how hard we try to hang on to our pasts, every one of us has said and done and experienced things that will later forever be lost to the passage of time. We are the sum of everything that has happened to us -- the places we've been, the people we've met, the lessons we've learned. And yet, some of these things shape us, leave their mark on us, and then disappear forever, drift away the way a helium balloon slips through the fingers of a child and vanishes into the infinite blue sky, never to be seen or thought of again.

Even if you didn't keep a diary, I think we can all relate to the feeling of being presented with a past life event that clearly did happen to you, but yet you can no longer recall a single thing about it. Have you ever been reminiscing with a friend and they detail -- at length -- some memory of theirs in which you played a central role, and you don't remember it at all? Ever found an old photograph of yourself and don't have the foggiest idea what the context was around it? Ever dug up some artifact from a previous portion of your life and can no longer remember where the hell it came from?

Reading about some of those long-forgotten memories in the diaries was a lot like that. There were accounts of things that had happened -- written in indelible ink in my own handwriting, interspersed between entries about things I do remember in great detail -- and yet, try as I might, I can't even pull up a single mental picture of them. 

That's the power of art -- of writing, of photography, of film -- it captures forever moments that would be otherwise lost to time.

“What is the past but what we choose to remember?” 
― Amy Tan, The Bonesetter's Daughter

And yet, we must also be aware of the limitations of any of these art forms to truly capture life as it happens. Like memory, art too is limited to the narrow perspective of its creator. This Instagram-age we're living in today is a perfect example. Scroll through your social media platform of choice and you'll see perfectly curated images that capture a specific aesthetic -- fitness "models" posing in very specific ways to accentuate their physical assets, "influencer" moms with their impeccably dressed children and magazine-worthy homes, pictures of flawlessly plated meals and swoon-worthy travel destinations. They're photographs, so they're not fake per se, but they also don't tell the whole story, don't show us what's happening behind the scenes. We don't see that the perfect-looking couple just had a huge argument, or that just beyond the influencer mom's flawless kitchen is a messy playroom. We don't see that the fitness model took fifty selfies before finding just the right angle that would hide her cellulite.

Diaries and journals, or any other writing that is intended mostly for one's own personal consumption, is likely a bit more "real" than what we see in social media -- I think of it more as the camera roll on your phone rather than your own personal Instagram feed. It includes the outtakes -- the less than perfect photos, the double-chin selfies. When we write for ourselves rather than for an audience, we don't have to be so careful about what we share. We can be a bit more candid because we don't have to worry about the judgement of others. 

And yet, we're still not really getting the full and accurate picture. Our perception of events is clouded by our own emotions, and is often limited by our maturity level or understanding of the world at the time in which we experienced it. This is especially true in diary entries written by an adolescent. While it was always my goal to write the details of events as I saw and experienced them, they were, of course, tainted by the limitations of my youthful perspective. Was that girl really giving me the evil eye at lunch, or was I just feeling particularly self-conscious that day? Was my crush really staring at me as I walked by him in the hallway, or was I just seeing what I wanted to see? Was my friend really at fault for our argument, or did I have a larger role to play than I believed? Was that guy really flirting with me, or was he just being friendly? These memories are captured in time from the immature perspective of a teenager, and now, as an adult, I can only guess as to how accurately I was actually seeing things.

Why does any of this matter? Does it matter? After all, as I mentioned earlier, life happens in the here and now. What's past is past -- we cannot go back. 

And yet, studying the past has value. We did not become the people we are right now, at this very moment, by accident. Everything we've been through has helped to shape us into the people that we've become. If we are really committed to becoming the best version of ourselves we can possibly be, I would argue that understanding our pasts is an essential part of that process. If you've ever worked with a therapist or have done any kind of personal development work, you know that many of our choices are shaped by patterns that play out in our lives again and again. We tend to repeat cycles, even sometimes those detrimental to our success, because they feel familiar to us. An important part of personal growth work is recognizing these cycles, identifying those patterns that are no longer serving us, and breaking free of them to create healthier ones. It is impossible to do this work without examining our pasts and delving deep into our memories, however murky or painful. Because, the truth is, even the experiences we've buried or forgotten have, to some degree, brought us to where we are right now.