There was a time when I could remember almost any day, and any conversation. At least those days and conversations that I thought were important for one reason or another. I think those days are no longer with me.
It is not that I can not remember certain days and conversations with perfect clarity. I think maybe my mind reached its capacity for in house storage, or maybe life became too busy for thoughts and such to be floating around all the time. I am not sure which, maybe it is neither.
When time is slow and I think about some event that took place, it still comes back to me, but not always as quickly as it once did. I have also noticed, and it may not be uncommon, those things I remember these days are not the same memories I would choose to remember a decade ago.
I also tend to think more about complete situations rather than just an aspect of a certain moment. I find I remember sounds, smells, or feelings that go with my memory rather than just reliving it again, as I did in the past.
Maybe it is because my life has changed so much that now when I reflect on events from my past, they are seen with how I view life now, rather than how I was when they occurred? At any rate, it is not bad, it is just different.
I also wonder during some of wanderings in my mind what I was thinking at that moment and why. I wonder if I am changing my memory to suit the present me, or I am reliving the event in my minds eye through the me that is now. Although it is also possible, I am picking and choosing filters that allow me to see something from my past the way I would have it now, rather then how I felt about it then.
On our day of judgement it has been said that we are our own judge and jury. Our fate rests in what and how we see what we did with our life and the experiences we had in it. If so that would not be a bad thing for me. Unless I go through change I can not imagine, there is not too much in my life that I would not do over or prefer never happened.
Maybe I am part of the thinking that I am all right, but I am not so sure about you. Or possibly I tend to be easier on myself, knowing that whatever decisions I made at any time in my life were the best decisions I could make at that time.
I had read somewhere that one can pass a polygraph test if enough time goes by and we convince ourselves that whatever we chose to believe is the truth. Wouldn’t that be a kick in the teeth to find that when we pass on all our memories of ourselves were changed over the years into what we preferred them to be, rather than what they really were?
I do not imagine that would happen though, because for that to be possible, it would mean that we are all living a lie through out our lifetime and what would be the point of that…spending a lifetime creating a fantasy that never happened.
How much better it would be to look over our life and pull up a series of memories that were all about the same situation and understand how we handled each situation as we gained life experience. It would be fulfilling I think to be able to say about a situation that when I was a boy, I acted in a certain way, and over time as I understood more about life and my part in it, what I did changed for the better each time.
That is a warming feeling. I am not sure we do that when we daydream about our life, but it would be a pleasant experience. I think starting today I will try to be more conscious of my actions and whether they have changed over time. I hope I have grown.
