Memories

Sometimes I sit and think about how I'll never remember every single day of my life. All those days where I felt sad, angry, happy, nervous---all fade into nothingness. Does that freak anyone else out? Our entire lives are lived on a day to day basis but then when you're in the present, you can't remember specifics about anything past a day or two. All we have are strings of memories. Memories that can be meaningful or not. Good or bad. What does your mind choose to remember?

When I'm having trouble falling asleep, I close my eyes and think of the first 5 memories that come to mind. I try to pull back as far as I can but it gets more and more difficult as the years go by. I don't want to forget those memories and so I think it's important to pool these from time to time. Get them down on paper in an effort to secure them even further.

1. I remember being forced to hang out with several people in my younger days. Parents should stop doing this because evidently it was unpleasant enough for me to commit it to memory. I remember going to other kids' houses and it smelling like farts. Their mom took us out to ice cream and she got me a small cup of cookie dough. I remember I didn't like cones. A small was really like a large to a normal person so a small to a 5 or 6 year old must have been enormous. I remember I could only eat about 5 spoonfuls before giving up. This other "mom" was concerned and told my mom that I didn't eat all my ice cream.

2. I remember riding my bike up and down my road. I used to pretend it was a car. 3 times up and down my road meant that I had driven in my car about 5 miles. My car changed with whatever I perceived to be my 'dream car' at the time. A white Neon. A green pathfinder. Who was I to judge cars? I just wanted to feel old. Occasionally I'd be old enough to have children, but for some reason I was always a single mom. My American Girl Dolls Felicity and Molly were my children. Felicity was older and rode horses. Molly was younger and had trouble in school.

3. I remember riding home from school on the bus one afternoon. I pretended the trees were dinosaurs. Friendly ones that stood there and watched the cars and buses go by as if it were perfectly normal to them.

4. I remember when my friends and I brought our beanie babies to school and decided that a fun game would be to throw them up into the trees and wait till they fell down. Once, I threw my black bear beanie baby so high that it got stuck in the tree. The janitor had to come and get it down with a ladder. I watched from the classroom window as my beanie baby finally plopped down and then was reunited with it after lunch.

5. I remember the dread of going to CCD classes after school. We'd get on a bus on Tuesdays and the mean old man from the church would be there. You'd get on and he'd point to the seat he wanted you to sit in. The bus seats were stuff, ugly and brown. We were given stale oatmeal cookies and flat sprite as a snack. If they wanted kids to stick with religion they should have thought about providing better snacks. Because now when I think about church I just think about eating stale oatmeal cookies and flat sprite. No one wants that.