Sunday, February 26, 2017

Recoiling and Remembering

One of the more interesting aspects of getting older, I've found, is finding my memories all the more potent. Perhaps it's because I'm making relatively few new ones given the regular doldrums of office life (and saving up some PTO to make some new memories), but sometimes I can close my eyes and remember something so precisely that it's almost jarring to exist in the present.

For example, if I think back to my time as a soccer player in high school, then my mind wanders back to the smells of a humid, sweaty summer of running and being so damned tired that I'd fall asleep as soon as I went home. And then there were the times where my friends and I, all sticky and exhausted from sweating our asses off, rumbled over to the nearby convenience store to buy a sandwich and a Gatorade, wearing our soccer gear. And I'm there, standing on the brown-tiled floor of the shop, browsing the chips and drinks, waiting for my friends to order their food so we can go eat on the sidewalk outside and generally grumble to each other how little we're getting any action from girls we think are attractive.

And the traffic rolls by and we sit on the cement blocks meant to stop cars from rolling forward too much, our legs sore and our backs hunched, digging into a sandwich whose bun is just a little too sharp for my mouth. My one friend talks about having a thing at his pool, which is always just water polo, and since I can't swim I'm always reticent to go. He also boasts that he's going to invite some girls, but it never happens so it'll never happen. (Note: eventually, some girls did actually come by.)

And more like that. It's always visceral, and I can smell it, taste it, hear it all as if my memories are just another screen playing back familiar video. Sometimes I can be in another place: on the train, buying food, talking to someone, and a thought from the past just creeps in and reminds me of something that I had forgotten for so long, and then I'm far away, years away, and I recall what it is to be younger.

This is a strange feature of getting older, strange and fascinating. On the one hand, these are the memories that created me as I am, and yet, in the past few years where life has been more monotonous and certain things have hardened and focused me in life, these older memories become more salient and grounded, and feel more fundamental to me than anything else. I have started to wonder if, at the ages I'm remembering, I felt something similar; the irony is, I don't remember. Maybe it was the bountiful free time to spend making new memories with friends, but I don't recall having so much time to reflect on my lives past.

So, I've started making an effort to write down my memories, or at least the notable things that happen to me on the day-to-day. Sure, I might not go drive around my town on warm summer nights blasting ACDC, but perhaps making the small things more salient means I'll cherish those more when I'm even older, too.
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