Memories

I wonder if we're all simply a product of our past? If our genes determine our eyes and our hair and the shape of our cells, so to might our past experiences determine our feelings and emotions and thoughts - like some type of blueprint for the person we are? And how do you escape it? How do you choose to be another person, or at least a different person? Is it even possible to change? Or are our experiences such strong boundaries that we can no more easily cross them than someone like me can claim to be blonde haired and blue-eyed?

I ask because my memories are creeping back to me. The things I have tried to let go of, the things I thought were too much to grasp. I have retained them. Like some indelible stain, they come back to haunt me. These are memories that are tugging at my mind - seeking me to let them in. They want me to remember what it feels like to be cast aside. They want me to remember what it feels like to sit and wait for someone to come to you, that is not yours and never was to begin with. My memories creep up on me at night and take various shapes - they call to me in dreams that I wake from only to gladly relinquish sleep. My memories have a stronger hold on me than my reality it seems. And pushing away seems so futile sometimes.Because my memories are something I know, something that wraps me like an old blanket. They may not be wanted, they may be castaways, but they are known. And the only other thing I have to hold on to right now is an unknown. A bright shiny unknown. And I can sometimes feel myself stretching to reach this unknown, to bring it closer, yet knowing that it somehow remains out of my reach right now. Maybe only for now, maybe forever.

And I become even more entangled in my memories. They pull me back - they tell me to hang on to my hurt, my pain, all the bad things because those are real. Those feelings are what keeps you going, gives you the strength to move on, to move forward, but to always look back - cautiously placing one foot forward as you survey what has gone before. Or standing still, at a junction. Trying to decide if the old path that you know so well will lead you true - a path that is worn grass and bare. Or if that path will lead you back to where you stand now - trying to decide which way forward; lost from ever finding your way back.........

So what of memories? My memories are my cage; they speak to me in silver tongue and flitter on sliver of wing. They invade my mind and steal my heart and tell me what is true, what is real to me. And yet, I feel them float hazily round as the shiny unknown becomes clearer. As the way becomes illuminated. As the overgrown, the weed-strewn path seems much dearer. While memories may hold us back, who among us has it in them to pull free? On our own, perhaps not. But with the shiny unknown of our future, perhaps eventually we can pull through, pull away, and leave the miasma of our memories behind.