It
is rather uncanny and almost always a certainty that an event is remembered
differently by witnesses. In whole, it is usually the same story retold by
these different witnesses but the details, the tit-bits, are usually different.
The beautiful butterfly perched nearby at the time might be the first thing I
remember when asked to recant, but until I mentioned it, you had completely
forgotten it was there, that you had admired it dismally. The first thing
you remember is the shock you felt at my rapid mood swing.
Do
we choose what we remember? Or do our memories come from what is most important
to us? The story we recant from memory may not necessarily be all we remember
but the part of it we want to share, or the detail we want our listeners to
focus on, usually to buttress the points we favour or that favours us. We carefully
leave out parts of the details we wish didn't happen and recant the bits that
sound good to us and as we’ll hope, good to our listeners. If we embellish long enough, we may start to forget the truth of what really happened.
Memories
can cause damages. Serious irreversible damages especially in relationships. One
may be up in bed after a nice date, re-living the hugs, conversations, the
smiles and the knowing looks when memories of past fights, probably forgiven
(or at least in the process of forgiving) hurtful words show up to ruin the
moment. These mood ruining memories have a way of lingering long and they do
not come alone. They show up with a
basket full of ‘what if’ questions…
“what
if he isn't really sorry?
“what
if she was acting tonight, if she was really into me she’ll never had acted the
way she did a gazillion years ago.”
…and just like that,
one “bad” memory of an argument that lasted 5 minutes ruins and takes over the
good feeling of the memory of an aggregate 5 months of bliss.
Okay, I think it is an
insult to the power of memories to simply classify them into “good memories”
and “bad memories”. Memories are good, they make us; it is what we do with them
that matter. We can choose to let go of unpleasant memories and treat them as a
part of our learning past, or we can hold on to the hurt and remain miserable.
