just a chapter.
I’ve been spending a lot of alone time lately. Just trying to process everything. I’ve been using that word a lot lately, process. Its not something that I am very familiar with. Learning how to process things has been a process for me, how ironic right? I don’t really know how to process yet. I’m still learning, still trying. It seems like yesterday that I was sitting on the floor in my room with some friends, surrounded by all of the stuff that I needed to pack, playing a new made up version of Candyland. I remember how I felt then. How much I wanted to leave. How ready I was for a new chapter of my life. And now here I am. This has been the best chapter in the story of my life so far.
Scents, laughs, music, scenarios, scenery, movies, and reading have been reminding me of memories and people a lot these days. It happens all the time, but I have been noticing it a lot more lately. Probably because I’m away from home. It’s been good and bad, but I appreciate it. I think that this happens to every one. Its pretty much a mystery in how it works. I like it. I think It’s because God wants us to remember. He wants us to remember how painful our growing experiences were. He wants us to remember what, and who made us who we are. He wants us to remember the life-changing moments. He wants us to remember the times we cried out to him. He wants us to remember the times we cried because we laughed so hard. He wants us to remember the heart break. He wants us to remember our friendships. He wants us to remember our best friend’s perfume when we smell it in the store. He wants us to see butterfly clips and think about how we did our hair like Lizzie McGuire when we were a chubby fifth grader who wore bubble shirts. He wants us to smell fire and think about new years bonfires. He wants us to listen to Radiohead and think about driving alone around the lake in the fall. He wants us to see blue carpet, and think about the church that we were raised in. He wants us to play a sport, and remember our teams and the times that we shared. He wants us to see warpaint and think about Wednesdays. He wants us to smell fresh air and cigarettes and think about driving around in the summer with your favorite people and your windows rolled down. He wants us to watch movies and think of people as the characters. He wants us to cover up with our pink/purple blanket and think about fighting over it every night and cuddling with your best friends. He wants us to see an outfit that reminds us of the ridiculous one that we wore the day that we got baptized. He wants us to hear the Local Natives and think about the last season of our lives. He wants us to meet new people that have some of the same qualities as our old friends from high school so that we don’t forget them. He wants our clothes to smell like home so that we are reminded that people there love us. We are supposed to remember. What would our lives be like if we completely forgot? What if we forgave someone, and they were completely deleted from our mind? What if we could wipe our brain slate clean whenever we wanted? I think it’d be somewhat like the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. We wouldn’t be who we are today if we forgot. There something that remembrance creates. Something worth remembering. Sometimes its hard to remember, but its better to remember… or we’ll forget.
I really want to remember this chapter. I don’t want to be able to convince myself that it never existed.
