Memories.  Some memories are comforting, while others evoke a visceral reaction.  Everything I know, everything I feel, and everything I believe at this very moment is linked to a memory.

Memories are powerful.  We replay some and repress some.  We try to forget some, while desperately trying to hold onto others.

Good or bad, experiences turn into memories and they shape us – our growth, our attitudes, our behaviour.  Who we love.  What we love.  Why we love who we love… all boils down to memory.

As I’ve been thinking about memories, so many have flooded into the forefront of my mind.  Childhood memories, high school memories, memories of travels and multiple moves.

When I think back on the times in my life and access my memories, I realize that every phase was the best of times and the worst of times (a la The Tale of Two Cities).   I hold on fiercely to the best of times, although I know that the worst of times has shaped me beyond measure.  I accept that.  I know that.  I visit those memories and evaluate how they affect me – how the experience that created them influenced who I am at this very moment.

The other day, I was jarred by picture that triggered a memory.  Not a happy memory.  Not a memory I ever choose to recollect.  Yet, there it was staring me in the face – tempting me to give it power and affect my mood and my state of mind.  I did and it did.

It amazes me that something so intangible, something contained in only my mind has so much power.  No one shares this memory with me; it is of my own creation – a product of an experience.  Those who shared that experience created their own memory of it, which has affected them in different ways (or not at all).

Memories are tricky because they are solely our creation, yet they wield so much power and influence everything we believe.  Amazing.  Scary.

Every time we remember, we judge ourselves again, we are guilty again, and we punish ourselves again, and again, and again. – don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

_____________________________________________________

This post is my third installment for Momalom’s Five for Ten. The topic is Memory