Tags
age, anger, childhood, depression, dissociation, life, lost, memories, memory, prose, ptsd, regret, victim, vision
I’ve been thinking about memory.
Not the memory of forgetting everyday chores and names of old Kings, but the magical moonlit pool of life in my head where I tentatively dip my toes to revisit the past.
Its a scary place, full of strange mists and noises. In the dark shadows mighty monsters break the surface and stretch their be-spined backs in the fetid air.
I can hear a child laughing – is that me? Was I ever so happy when I was so young? – and light falls like pollen on the water nearby. I lean a little to look into the memory and the ground shifts beneath my feet. Lurching, flailing, grabbing for handholds in indifferent air.
I am held suspended in horror and fright in a moment of grace, and then the hot salty tears of the pool close around me.
Underneath, I force my eyes open and then cringe from what I see.
Floating bubbles, each with a memory I regret. They dance in front of my horrified eyes for as far as I can see. Every stupid, mean, vain, sordid, horrible moment. They’ve been waiting for me. They hover around the bright memories below.
I can’t see the good moments because of these flouncing, dancing regrets.
I reach for the surface, pulling against the insistent current.
They want to be seen. They want me to lose myself in a life I lost and squandered. Being a victim. Being angry without ever knowing who to target. So targeting myself.
And it’s all too late. The chances have gone.
Each time I reach the chill air and gasp a grateful breath, I am amazed. I have escaped.
I walk away from the thought that had triggered my trip to the pool. And I try to let my anger fall away like scales.
I am without past I tell myself.
I am new.