BITTERSWEET

You know how they say that at the moment of your death, your life flashes before your eyes? Well, it seems to me that as we get older this begins to happen on a smaller scale. Now that much more of my life is behind me than ahead of me, I often find memories of the past intruding on my days. 

I will be taking a walk or pruning roses, when I will suddenly have an image of my teenaged self heading to the movies with my best friend to see A Hard Day's Night; or my 20-year-old self, sitting under a tree with a boy; or my 30-something self, composing a short story on a typewriter; or my 40-something self, hugging a young daughter; or my 50-something self, admiring my husband, with his dress-shirt sleeves rolled up.  Or I am sitting in a college classroom, bursting with the love of literature, imagining my life as a writer; or celebrating the birth of a daughter; or hunched over my computer, rushing to meet a deadline at work.

You get the idea.

The memory will be sharp, as if it were a photo lit by a flash. Like a sunset, it will linger for a few moments, and then it will be gone, leaving me with whatever it was I was doing before the memory filled my inner eye.**

This didn’t happen in my early and middle years, when the present crowded out most of the past, most of the time. But, now, memories are everywhere.  I will spend time with a granddaughter, and suddenly have an image of that granddaughter's mother as a baby.  I will start to read a book and remember another book.  

 

And, often, these days, I will see a face - on TV or on the street, anywhere, really - and be reminded of another face. I guess this makes sense.  There can only be so many variations on faces. The most startling moment of this sort occurred last week when I saw a picture of our new Congresswoman, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, on the front page of our paper, and did a double take. Viewing her face in profile, I thought it was a picture of me. Let me hasten to add that Marie is 34. I am not 34, but I saw a young me in the photo.  I sent the picture to a few people who knew me when, and found that my reaction was shared. It was very unsettling.  (The photo, not their reaction. Sometimes I will watch a TV show or movie from years or decades ago and wonder what it is like for the actors to see themselves moving about in their younger incarnations.) 

 

And then there are the times when memories or faces don't intrude, when I actually invite them, as when I’m trying to fall asleep at night and I do what I call watching home movies. I will pick a moment in my life and call up scenes from that time and just hang out there for a while. 

 

And sometimes my memories feel like a deck of tarot cards that I can spread out on a table, picking up a few and pondering what they have to tell me. Was that a good decision?  Would I make that choice again?  How much would I give to relive that day? How does a particular memory inform a decision I must make today?

 

At times, memories bring me great joy and, at times, they bring regret or longing. Not too much regret though.  Of, course, there are things I profoundly wish I hadn’t done or had done differently, but if I were to undo any decision from my past, everything that followed would collapse.  Most importantly, I would not have the family and friends that surround me.  There would be a different family and group of friends, but this is inconceivable. And, so, I have learned to, mostly, accept my past.

 

Finally, there is this.  The older I get, the more the past and present seem to overlap and unspool at the same time. I am grateful to have lived long enough to have such a wealth of memories weaving through my present. 

 

And you, who read this post, may your regrets be few, and may your memories, however fleeting, bring you joy and peace. 

 

 ** Yes, I have written before about the intrusion of memories. https://woacanotes.blogspot.com/2019/09/fire-and-rain-on-time-travel-and.html   I guess I had more to say on the subject.