Personalized Past

Lately I've been realizing that I've gotten old. I mean, not literally "OLD". I just mean that I've been living a lot longer than what I used to lately. I've also realized that I've far out done the ages that I remembered being scary and "adult" as a kid.

Either way, I just got a little worried since I don't consider my memory to be super awesome (short term, I mean. My long term memory is pretty good.) I live very much in the moment and so when I'm in a certain moment or a certain location everything else feels like the distant past. If I were to show up to my summer camp that I haven't been to for half a decade or more, for instance, I would feel like I've never left. I would remember the warm breeze, the bright sun, and that open field like it were yesterday. I would sit back in the cool shade of the trees and think that I probably left my towel on the line out back.

I got nervous that since there is more of my life to remember that there would be more of it to forget. The last few days I've been quietly and calmly asking my mind to remember every detail of my life. I'm trying to remember things I had all but forgotten and eventually I'm hoping to stretch scenes out so that I remember more than what I even used to remember remembering...!

Last nite I took a trip back to my old bathroom and envisioned myself turning the tub on for my mom one of the countless times I would have done it. I say that to point out I wasn't necessarily remembering any specific time but an act done more than once. Our water heater was "The Economizer" so you would just turn the hot water on and by the time the tub filled the water would be luke warm. I started thinking back to the old color of my bathroom walls and suddenly the thought of my yellow and black Batman symbol night light came to mind. While I was writing this just now I also remembered the shattered look of our bedroom doors.

There was a nite that I was upset about something in my bedroom and I started to write on the door. I was writing that I wasn't going to go to school any more. I spelt skool wrong on the door also about four times! That time brings me back to another when my room was on the top floor and I started writing in my year diary about how I was upset at my mom. It was one of those page a day books and over the course of five years I wrote it in four times! I had these random days marked out in no particular order where I had to write the year next to the date because I didn't finish the diary in time.

I'll let you know if anything else comes from this and I'd like to hear if any of you have tried similar things. Thanks for reading.

Steven A.