memory

Memory

There is a lot that we still don’t understand about the way our brains store and organize our memories. There have been a few times in my life where I’ve considered keeping a detailed journal of each days events. Part of me is afraid that there are important moments that I am going to forget. There could even be some I’ve already forgotten. There are definitely a lot of instances in college that I was too drunk to form adequate memories, but I do have a hazy recollection when a friend brings up different moments. It would certainly be interesting to look back on a written record of a memory years later and see if my memory recalls it as accurately as the written version. Seems unlikely that it would.

It is unsettling to know, but our memories aren’t very reliable. Eye witness accounts have been proven to be highly flawed, even when about a momentous event. How can we trust our own memories of simple every day things? When I look back on my life, I wonder how much of it has been colored by my own interpretations and emotions. How much has been altered? How much has faded away?

I have always been perplexed when people say their earliest memories are when they are 7 years old or something equivalent. Really? Is that when most peoples’ memory record begins? I have memories from before I was even able to speak. I certainly have lots of memories from before I was in school. But this discrepancy between myself and others has made me ponder my own memories even more. When I really think about it, those early “memories” do feel different than, say, a memory of being in middle school. I feel somewhat more removed. Like I am remembering other times when I’d told the story of that memory. It made me wonder if I should even count that as a memory any more. Maybe that’s why other people don’t claim to have memories from that early on in life.

I think the majority of us feel extremely confident in our ability to remember our past accurately. It is scary to realize that despite this confidence, the only thing we really can be certain of, is that those memories aren’t entirely correct. We may never know exactly what happened in our pasts. But then again, maybe that doesn’t matter. Maybe the ways our brains change our memories over time is just as important.

It seems to me that the more we learn and discover about the human brain, the more it appears that our reality is actually a clever illusion. This is terrifying and fascinating to consider. It is scary knowing we can’t really trust our own senses to portray our world with 100% accuracy. However, at least for me, this is also an exciting realization. To me this information also sends a message that we still don’t fully comprehend this existence. There could be so much more about consciousness and the universe that we can’t even imagine from our current perspective. It opens up a Pandora’s box of possibilities. It even makes me question the finality of death.

The things we reveal, the insights we uncover as we delve deeper into the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and biology may scare us. But they also may excite us. They may open up our understanding of this world, this life, in ways that no one could have anticipated. So while my brain may not be the same as a camera, recording my memories like a video, I will trust what it does save for me. And I will keep going. I will keep facing this crazy existence that may just be a clever illusion created for me inside my own head. It can be frustrating to accept there are things I just can’t understand. But I am still eager and hopeful that some day I just might.

Four Years

I can’t believe it has already been four years. Four years since my hopes were shattered. Four years since I lost everything just as I thought I was about to finally craft my own happily ever after. Four years since that long silence, since the day that still grips my heart and burns my eyes.

Yet also four years since I submerged myself in my yoga practice. Four years since my practice saved me, since I saved me. Four years since I decided to be my own happily ever after, since I decided to stop waiting for someone else to bring happiness to me. When I finally decided it was always mine to take.

Time can be a scary thing. How is it that I can feel hardly anything has changed and so much has changed simultaneously? How can it feel so long ago yet also so recent? When I was younger each day seemed to be stacked up neatly in my mind. Each moment so powerful and poignant. It feels like many more significant things happened within the three years I was in middle school than have happened in the last four. Is that an accurate perception? Or is it distorted somehow as more years pile up behind me? Have the years smeared together naturally due to aging, or am I losing the clarity I once had due to drug use? Perhaps both?

How am I already turning 27-years-old next month? It makes me want to laugh and cry all at the same time. Who even am I now? Do I even accurately remember who I’ve been? How much more will my perception of time be altered as more years pass? I can’t bear for it to become any faster or murkier. Yet I fear it will. I don’t want to forget. I don’t want to keep changing. I had never envisioned myself even getting this far. And the rest of the road ahead seems less clear than ever.

Four years… a few blips in my memory. And what of the spaces in between them? Were they not worth remembering? Have I really wasted so much time already? Yet I remember that fall four years ago so well. It is sharp and sour. A drop in an ever-open wound. However, it is also sweet. It was that fall that taught me I would be there to catch myself. And that was enough. I was enough. I finally committed to myself, to my practice.

Nothing has changed since that day. Everything has changed because of that day. I am different. And I am the same. I have withered, and I have grown. Time marches on, relentless. A burden and a gift.

This Gift

When I was only a few years old, I can remember one particular instance on Christmas day very clearly. My older sister and I were gleefully opening piles of presents from my parents under the tree. It was early in the morning. My parents were in their bathrobes, gazing at us sleepily, but happily, from over their steaming cups of coffee.

As my sister begins unwrapping one gift, her face falls. In her hands she holds the board game Operation. I hear her shout angrily, “I didn’t want this!” To be fair, neither did I. We were both fairly timid and anxious children. The idea of a loud buzzer going off if you make a mistake in a game seemed quite upsetting. However, I can still feel how absolutely mortified I was by her reaction.

I think I must have been too young to really articulate my feelings at the time. I genuinely may have not been able to talk. (I have memories from far earlier on in life than most people I’ve learned.) But even being so young, I knew how terribly rude and ungrateful my sister was being. How could someone complain about a gift! Even if it is something you hate. It is still a gift. And gifts should be met with gratitude.

I think back on this memory a lot. Today it came to mind because I have been struggling with my anger once again. I have a tendency to get angry at the smallest inconveniences and keep that anger with me all day. Some days are worse than others in this regard. In order to quell that anger this morning, I meditated on the fact that this life, this entire existence, is a gift. Every moment of it.

How silly it is to let such small moments make me ungrateful for this gift. This unimaginably wonderful gift! I got to wake up this morning. I got to see the sun rise. I got to listen to music. I got to feel soft sensations against my skin. I got to snuggle and kiss my sweet fur children. I got to sip amazing coffee with pumpkin spice almond milk creamer!

It can be so easy to let our minds ruminate on the things that displease us. It can be so easy to forget to be thankful. The next time I find myself pouting about something, or getting upset, I am going to silently whisper thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Thank you, universe, sweet mother earth, for giving me this existence, this consciousness! How could I ever be so selfish to ask for anything more? It is perfect in every way. Because I wasn’t owed any of it. Yet all of this was given to me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I am so grateful.