by no other than @andycyca
The thing about forgetting is that it's an invisible thing. We love remembering all sorts of stuff, from first kisses to moving days; opening dates, awards, travels and graduations. These days pretty much everything we do with others can easily be stored for years and often we just pack them in external hard drives (in other times, it would've been cardboard boxes in an attic, but it's all the same) and go on with our lives, only to review all those moments and songs a few years later.
Some things are not to be forgotten and shouldn't be stored with everything else. Those things are meant to be kept inside of you, where they can be easily accessed but not meant to be public: anniversaries that should be celebrated only between to people, passwords to bank accounts and email addresses, PIN numbers and secret recipes that connect you to other intimate memories and feelings.
Do you remember your first kiss? The first time you knew you were in love with someone? The first time you drove a car, the first time you sat on a roller coaster, the day you met your best friend? Those are like explosions in the sky, really big, fiery moments that will always be there in our biological memory (wherever it may be). A song, a scent, a person can trigger those memories and put a huge smile on your face even in the worst day, leaving everyone else to wonder why your face is brighter and suddenly you treat everyone and everything a little bit nicer than only a minute ago.
Yes, those things are easy to remember because they are good or funny or lovely and they made us feel good, even if it was for only a minute, the memory can last a lifetime.
Other memories aren't so good at all. The day a family member died, the day your friend moved to another city, the day you fell or had an accident, when you found out he/she was cheating on you, the exact phrase that ended a relationship, when you realized nothing was as perfect as you once thought. Those memories bring us negative feelings and we often want to forget them. Usually, we don't.
A painful memory is usually never forgotten. While it is around, sometimes we cry and feel really bad and then eventually grow out of it. We learn to accept how some things aren't pretty and that life must have its share of bad feelings, or it wouldn't be truly just.
In the worst case, we try so hard to forget that moment that we end up thinking about it all the time, sometimes falling into destructive patterns that lead us to similar mistakes, similar memories, similar pain. The memory isn't gone or forgotten; it might stick around for a long, long time. Even a lifetime.
On second thought, that may not be the worst. Maybe what's even worse is true forgetfulness. And to really forget something, is an entirely different story.
I saw a picture of a girl today. Back then, she liked me and caused trouble in order to "get me". She spread lies about my prospective girlfriend, blackmailed a few of my friends to get them to talk me into her, even forged a letter as another girl I used to like. All to "get me". To me, she was a friend, then a weird friend and then a creep. We argued a few times, I wanted her to stop her antics, to stop making my friends feel bad. She said she wanted me and would stop if we started dating. I said nothing and walked out.
Fast forward a couple years: I see her picture in a friend's old yearbook (one of the friends that were blackmailed) and remember the whole story, which is a lot longer than what I've written here. Without noticing, I flash a smile and my friend sees me. "What are you thinking?" he says and I show him the picture of the girl. "Oh, her. Yeah, I remember..." and proceeds to tell me her story after we parted ways. It's not a pretty one.
When he's done I ask him how he feels about her:
"Well... I don't know. I forgot what she did to me until a minute ago... No, I don't think she deserved it, it's awful and no one should have to live through that, but I guess it was her choice and not mine. I feel bad for her, but that's all. I forgot she even existed until you mentioned it"
That's when I started thinking: I guess she did have an impact on our lives, but only for a while and not a very valuable one. The minute she exited our lives we forgot her in the truest sense: we passively forgot her: we never tried to cover the memories or drown them in alcohol or coke or whatever. We forgot her by going on with our lives, by living new experiences: college, graduation, a job and everything in between.
A grand moment, one that creates a memory, is like a firework. A big, bright event even if it lasts only a second. Forgetting, on the other hand, is more like a patch of dirt swept by the wind. Every day it grows smaller and smaller without us doing anything and we don't even notice when it's gone.
Then, being forgotten may be even worse. When you forget someone (or someone forgets you) there's nothing left of you behind. Sometimes that might be the best thing, but in general being forgotten (and I mean being truly forgotten) is similar to erasing a bit of your existence, a small denial on reality. When you're truly forgotten, even if you get remembered later on, your mark on whoever forgot you is gone.
I remembered this girl and continued on with my life. I don't feel sorry for her. I don't feel hateful for what she did to me and my friends, I don't feel good for her successes. I'm truly neutral about her, just the same as with many other people in my High School with whom I never talked. For a moment, I feared that might happen to me.
Maybe that's why we hurt ourselves too much with things we want to forget. When we want to forget something, we're trying; we're doing when we should do nothing.
Posted on Apr 4, 2012