I think only time, and begrudging acceptance (and hopefully eventual appreciation) will be the way that I can accept my relationship with memory. Even now, the anxiety I felt over my lack of control of my own memory has started to subside. It’s obvious to me now that you can’t call on it when you need it. It will return to me of a volition that is out of my control, and the context that it returns under will be fragmented, at best: scattered memories, without a before or after, just moments existing outside of time.
In some ways that’s beautiful. It is still maddeningly frustrating. But I’m beginning to understand why it has to be this way. Forgetfulness was a cost and a gift that needed to be accepted. You can’t live the way I’ve lived, running so hard from your past that you think your lungs are going to collapse, and still expect to remember things. Not looking back was one of the most necessary decisions I never actually made. I knew appreciation for forgetfulness, before I knew nostalgia, what’s to say that appreciation isn’t a cycle?
