Selective Memory

We remember what we want to remember. It's not that hard to memorize something. All it takes is a few repetition of the thing you want to instill in your vault of memory... but have you realized, the same doesn't apply for forgetting? I read we can choose what we want to remember, but we can't choose what we want to forget. Lets ponder on that for a moment... Isn't it just so spot on?

Have you ever tried forgetting something? Not forgetting something like your keys or a phone number or anything... I mean an event. A significant event in your life. Have you tried so hard to forget only to find the one thing you're trying hard to erase is growing like a tumor? That's how I feel sometimes.In a symbolic act of getting rid of the past that clings onto me like the shadow Wendy stitched onto Peterpan, I burned everything that would transport me to a Time long gone. My diaries, letters, pictures, clothes, memorabilia, everything turned into ashes. At that moment, burning those items of the past, watching them wither in the fire and gradually turn to dust, I felt a deep sense of relief. It was as if all the burden on my shoulders have been released.

But the thing with the past is that it has sneaky ways of creeping back into you. You can burn proofs, but the past resides in you. It takes refuge in your senses. It is in the air you breathe, the sky above your head, it is in distinctive sounds and music, it is at the tip of your tongue... It is everywhere... floating, waiting to be recovered. It shapes you into the being that you are now. The past changes you... your personality, your inter and intra relations skill. It shows in the way you talk, in your everyday actions... because no one stays the same. They may hold onto some beliefs, but some things will be different because you've been exposed to certain things at certain moments in life.The more the event changes you, the more trouble you'll have forgetting. Your first day at school, a painful fall, an incredible once in a lifetime holiday, the first time you fell in love, the first time you had your heart broken... And of all the things that are difficult to forget, the hardest is probably the people involved. The people that made it all happen. Now how do you forget them? Even if they do slip your mind...there's no guarantee they wont be back.

How much longer can you run?