In 2020 I’m answering a list of 52 journal questions. Read about it here.
Something you want to remember.
I have a really good memory for things, so rather than things I want to remember, I have things I wish I could forget. I’m not talking about the big things, the things that help shape who you are. Those I understand I need to remember, because they have made me who I am.
The problem with a good memory is that all the little wrongs I have done, the uncomfortable moments, can’t be forgotten.
I’m talking about the time I thought the man in the wheelchair was waving me through the zebra crossing, and as I drove through, he started across and I realised, too late, he was trying to wave thanks for stopping (about 17 years ago).
Like when I stared at a girl on the beach because she had an enlarged throat/cheek (I assume now she had some sort of tumour). I would have been about 8 years old.
Or the time when I was about 5 or 6 years old, grade 1 at school, and I told a boy in my class his lunch was weird because he had a cold toasted sandwich.
These things haven’t shaped me, or impacted my life, but they haunt me. And there are many more.
I wish I could forget.
September 11, 2020 at 9:14 pm
I also have a really good memory and there are things like this that I wish I could forget!
September 12, 2020 at 7:57 am
It’s hard, isn’t it!
September 12, 2020 at 12:10 am
I have some of those, too horrid to even share. I know exactly what you mean. Growing up is painful because you realize what your child did.
September 12, 2020 at 7:57 am
And often it isn’t until decades later you realise!
September 12, 2020 at 6:48 am
I think we all have those moments, and I think we should remember them. Now you know to do better because you didn’t in that moment. Earth shattering? No. But even the little things turn us into who we are.
September 12, 2020 at 7:59 am
Except I think in a lot of those instances they didn’t help because it wasn’t until decades later you realise the significance of what was said/done (as a child) and as for the adult ones, I am now very anxious every time I approach a zebra crossing in a car! It hasn’t made any positive impact on me 🙁
September 12, 2020 at 7:16 am
It’s funny, it seems that so many people in this world are absolutely shameless, and then there are those of us whose memories are branded for life with all the little times we felt foolish or ashamed of something that no one else even remembers! There’s got to be a happy medium in there somewhere!
September 12, 2020 at 7:59 am
I would love a happy medium. I think the world would be a better place for it.