Fading Memories & Drifting Days

Fading Memories

Deep Thoughts

Fading memories, folded into a deep pocket of our minds. Sharpness gone. Edges blurred. It's such a pity that our minds lack the storage space to contain and recall the full breadth and depth of life. Fractured and faulty memories of forgotten moments in time, are irreversibly replaced with fresh ones, newly lived. Yet some hold on. Keeping shape and taking up space. Overshadowing and encroaching all others.

The ones that linger can haunt us or heal us. Stamping and imprint so deep and broad that minuscule passing moments have no capacity to take hold. Until a place, item, setting, smell or taste conjures up a lost memory from the some stagnant place in our minds. But eventually those fade too.

How cruel it is to know that the day we lived today will not only be forgotten by the world, but it will also be forgotten in our own mind too. We will never experience it again in its full lived in form. Instead we will only recall it in small fragmented bursts when prompted, that is if we can recall them at all. And in time, every piece of our lived day will disintegrate in our mind as if that blip of our existence never happened. Unless a life altering moment materialised amongst the mundane. Moments we pull to the front of our minds eye and play on repeat to either torture or soothe us.

 

So as I sit here, studying my sons face as he stares into the blue light of the TV screen,  I wonder, will I remember this mundane snapshot of a moment? If so, for how long? And in the simple act of actively observing and writing it down, I already know it will hold far longer than it ever would have otherwise.

 

Journaling, photos and videos are my time capsules and memories preserving stations. The fear of fading memories lures me to capture more, keep more and in turn remember more. And perhaps others will look back on this life I have lived too in my various forms of memory keeping. Then and only then does the memory live on beyond my own mind and perception to be reinterpreted and perceived by others, perhaps even beyond my own short lifespan.

 

I take comfort knowing that my life, no matter how insignificant it may be, holds worth beyond my own memories and experience. So when I eventually fade away along with my memories, pieces of this life will linger and stamp a mark saying 'I existed here'.

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Drifting Days

A Poem

Drifting days.

Waning, shortening, lengthening.

Meandering through time.

Containing so much yet so little.

Passing by unnoticed

yet fully absorbed

within their tight hold.

Dragging and dull,

or fast and full

yet gone in a flash.

Time, keep me still.

Let me stay in this moment

just a little longer

before I drift away into the next.