misty water-coloured memories. . .

Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose

memory informs us of how far we've come along; it is the ultimate yardstick with which we can measure successes and failures, tragedies and triumphs above all, use the past to change the future. and yet, the irony of it all, is that age-old cliche about "history repeating itself", making the notion of progress something of a fickle dogma.

human beings are the only species concerned with preserving memories or recalling things that happened in the past.  it is a peculiar preoccupation that serves as something of a double-edged sword; you want to remember what makes you "you" and yet at the same time, fear wasting your life living in the glory (or lack thereof) of the past.

all this begs the biggest question of all, do things ever really change?

if ever there was a time to look back and try to make sense of your recent past, the countdown to the New Year is ideal.  one whole year's worth of mischief, mistakes and misdemeanours to ponder is quite the heavy load, but if there is redemption at the end of the road, isnt it all well worth it? in life, we do not have the option to edit - there are no scenes we can cut, moments to delete or situations to fast forward (or sometimes press pause) through.  and yet, any glance backwards will most likely cause us to feel some pang of regret, a gripping urge to relieve the past and right some wrongs or undo certain experiences.  we hold onto the "if only" belief so strongly (if only i had done things differently, i would be happier/better/stronger) that we lose sight of the fact that for better or worse, life does indeed go on.

in the not-so-magnum opus that is my life so far, the memories of times past that i really just want to obliterate from the mental backlog are far too many. 

 

Aspire not to have more,  but to be more

in the process of "growing up", a seemingly never-ending exercise that can be nothing if not frustrating, i have faux pas one too many times.  i have made stupid decisions that may have hurt others; i have acted selfishly, albeit unknowingly, alienating people i love; i have been oh-so-very foolish.  and yet knowing that i cannot change my past i usually end up embracing it - the proverbial good, bad and ugly - and try to glean a grain of wisdom from it all. whether that works or not, i leave up to powers that be to decide. it all came together this past weekend, i was left to my own devices (or simply my vices) in a groundhog-day-esque twist of fate.  when all you're left with are the little voices in your head (come on im not crazy, we all have them), its easy to come to the conclusion that some things will never really change. but that's not to be confused with something resembling a hopeless statement, in fact its anything but.  when you know yourself well enough to predict how you will react to certain things, change is simply a matter of doing the unpredictable and utterly random.  the blows, they will come, its just up to us to roll with the punches.

 

Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude

in the scramble that is the pre-new year attempt to leave an indelible mark on the world, i find myself one week away from a failed mission. i humbly accept that my memories of the past twelve months, while very far from perfect or ideal, are what they are. i refuse to regret but am hoping and praying really, really hard that in the next year, i'll be able to avoid making the same mistakes.  and while im still pretty much the same person - at least the on blog version of myself - i hope that for all the blunders committed, ive been able to balance that out with a bit of good. those at least, are the memories that i'll be carrying over into 2008.  and as for resolutions, now that's a whole other ball game.