On Memories

"When you are with another person, all your memories are invested in that person, like a bank account of shared memories. It's not that you refer to them constantly. In fact, for people who do not live in the past, you almost never say, "Do you remember that night we...?" But you don't have to. That is the best of all. You know the other person does remember. Thus, the past is part of the present as long as the other person lives. It is better than any scrapbook, because you are both living scrapbooks."
- Frederico Fellini

"Our memories are the only paradise from which we can never be expelled."
-Jean Paul Richter

Memories... Lately I've come to realise what an important part memories actually play in human relationships.. Ever heard phrases like, "It takes seconds to fall in love, years to forget." or "One never forgets the first love", or even phrases like "scarred for life"? All have to do with memories...
In the case of relationships, amazingly it takes as long, or even longer,for a person to "recover".. I've known people who had a one year relationship and took more than one year to forget, or even jst several months together which caused 3 years of misery... That's how strong memories are, and I wonder why...

Maybe it's because memories are the only thing we can hold on to after we've lost someone, so we hold on to them even tighter..Replaying each scene over and over, re-living each laughter and re-weeping each sorrow...Sometimes to the point that those memories become so idealised... It's scary how we can choose to remember and alter events in our minds, say, remembering the happy memories passed with a person again and again till we become convinced we were really, really, really happy in the past and could not be as happy again. How do I explain this....Hmm....say, I was 60% happy when I was with someone, but after that I could not meet the person again, in my mind I might exaggerate how happy I was with him/her that in the end when I remember that person I've convinced myself I'm actually 90% happy with the person. (After all it's always easier to remember good things about someone when they are not actually around.) That's when you get the phrase "Living in the past", which, I think, sucks but sometimes cannot be helped.

And what is the sadness of love unrequited, if not the sadness of not having a chance to create memories together? When we say, "It could've been with him/her..", do we mean, "I remember the great times we've had together and how I wish we could create more memories together..."

Memories gain strongholds in our lives and color everything we do, how we think, how we relate...Memories precede feelings, and as memories fade, feelings go away too...I'm convinced of that, that's why it's important to create new memories with people you care about. As a person with very strong memories regarding some things (and 100% forgetfulness regarding other things...I call it "selective storage"....), I still don't think being able to forget some things easily is a blessing.. I am grateful to say I've had no serious bad memories so far, Life's been great in the sense that my memories read like an adventure-comedy-lame-deep-sometimes-surprising novel..

Well, I wish it would continue to be like that, maybe with more emphasis on the adventure and deep part and less on the lame, but we'll see....

"Good days are to be gathered like grapes, to be trodden and bottled into wine and kept for age to sip at ease beside the fire. If the traveller has vintaged well, he need not wander no longer, the ruby moments glow in his glass at will."
- Freya Stark