Nobody really knows how memory works. I read somewhere that we when we remember something, we don’t actually pull it whole from the databanks, rather we re-create it from fragments and fill in the gaps. If that is true then all of our memories are somewhat unreliable.
Be that as it may I believe that how we treat our memories, by which I mean the individual moments of recall, has a strong influence on how they continue to impact our lives in the present and for the future.
We may have no influence over which past events surface in our minds, but we do have a clear choice over how we respond to them once they’re there. It seems to me that we can either polish the memory or erode it.
I use the word erode rather than erase because we cannot fully forget something which has happened, it’s all lodged in there somewhere even if we rarely access it. We can, however, take the gleam off it, make it duller, let it fade, allow it to be come less significant.
When a memory pops up – and some of them do just that – we can be taken aback. Sometimes we deliberately re-call our memories, but just as often they jack-out-the-box at us, taking us by surprise.
Regardless of whether they’re answering our summons or just arriving uninvited we get to decide how to respond. We can enter fully into the memory-moment, re-live the emotions, sense that episode, feel it, give it life…polish it, make it shine, ensure that it endures.
Or we can look at it from outside and say: yes this happened, but it is past and done, and I choose to let it wear away and disappear. We can choose to not willingly re-experience the emotion. We can choose to slowly divest it, layer by layer, of its power over life now, today and tomorrow. Erode it. Let the waters of time wash it slowly away. Dissolve it.
To begin with, we may see little change. The memory arises, it provokes the thoughts and feelings. However, if we continue to respond consistently by acknowledging that, yes, this happened and then confirming that it is past and done, and choosing now to think on other things, to use our energy to polish today’s gems not yesterday’s rubble, then slowly we find the incident replays less frequently and with less force.
We do not forget. Forgetting is not the objective. Everything that has happened has played its part in making us who we are now.
We do not need to seek the lesson to be learned. We have already learned the lesson simply by surviving the moment. That is enough.
All we need to do now is let it go, erode it, let it dissolve away.
I do not mean to down-play how hard this might be. And for the worst of memories, professional help may be needed. But I strongly believe that it starts with a choice – the choice not to polish the memories that do not serve us well.
Let me say at this point that I am not immune to this disease of polishing what should be eroded. I can still get angry about things that happened decades ago, some of them involving people now long dead. Sometimes, I think I don’t just polish the rubble, I set about re-cutting it into a different shape just so’s I can polish it up differently and find another aspect to be angry about. But… I’m working on it. There are fewer of these than there once were.
As always, the work starts with simply noticing.
Whenever you find yourself reliving a moment, ask yourself if this is a gem to be polished, or rubble to be eroded. If it’s a gem – then set to with great joy. Trips down memory lane are beautiful things: they honour the good times we’ve had and the people we have loved and been loved by who may no longer be around, they celebrate the life-so-far.
However, if the memory is not bringing you joy, or at least a little sweetness, then maybe put the cloth away.
A number of things have struck me since I started to take note of when I am buffing up a memory.
The first thing is that old hurts I hadn’t thought about in years began to surface. Things long buried, but not dealt with. Often I see these in a different light and find aspects in the situations that are maybe worth a clean, before putting them back in the bank. I recently remembered a specific incident from when I was about four years old.
We weren’t a religious family, but as children we were sent to Sunday School at the local church. We had been attending for quite a while for the Sunday morning meetings in the church hall, and the monthly “Family Worship” session in the church itself. There came a week when the organisers of the ‘school’ were re-organising the small groups that we were generally taught in. All of the children were brought to the front of the hall and the teachers called out names one by one in a seemingly random order. It was much like sports teams being picked at school – but that was an experience I had yet to face. On this Sunday morning I stood as the names were called until I was left at the front. Alone. My name was not called.
They later told my Mam that I couldn’t go in the mornings because I wasn’t old enough. I had to join the Babies’ group in the afternoons. They were insensitive enough to call it that “Babies’ group” within my hearing. As if I hadn’t already been humiliated enough.
Left at the front of that room though, I behaved like a baby. I was hurt and I cried. One of my favourite teachers, Gillian, called me over to her, told me “you can be in my group today”. She did more than that, she took me in her arms and onto her lap.
She also told Mam that she was more than happy to have me attend her group. I was a smart kid, I wasn’t holding anyone back, I was engaged and well-behaved. But the powers that were, were adamant – I wasn’t old enough.
I was too young to understand the ‘old’ bit – I only heard the ‘not’ and the ‘enough’.
Mam was furious. Her solution was that if we couldn’t go together, my older brother and I, then neither of us would attend. She wasn't having one going in the morning and one in the afternoon. I can’t remember whether they relented at that point, or whether we were reprieved attendance until I’d attained the relevant number of years.
I’m sure that was the first time that I had ever felt alone or unwanted. And clearly I buried that label somewhere deep, because when it surfaced I felt the shame of it all over again.
Clearly one to be dissolved.
On further reflection though, I realised that the message in the memory wasn’t about being alone or unwanted or feeling humiliated. It wasn’t about how I felt then, how I reacted as a hurt child who had been told she wasn’t “something enough” to be wanted. I realised I didn’t need to forgive my child self for being a sensitive child, especially as I am now pleased to be a sensitive adult.
No. The message in the memory is that when I felt alone and mistreated, there was someone to hold me and someone to fight for me. I was not alone. I never have been. I never will be. When the memory still brings tears to my eyes, I know that it is because I am touched by that message.
So I don’t need to dissolve it at all. That is one that I can re-cut to emphasise a different facet – give it a shine, and take it out of the rubble and put it in the treasure chest where it belongs.
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The next thing I notice as I continue the work is that fewer and fewer of the painful memories show up. Maybe they’re scared of being fizzed out? So with fewer of them taking up head-space I find more and more happy ones creeping in.
Springsteen might have mocked the boring stories of glory days but I’ll hold on to mine – not least because I didn’t see all the glory of them at the time – and they remind me to look more closely at these present days – these are also happy days.
I remember the games we played. I remember sunshine days, and storms. I remember power-cuts and candles. I remember paddling pools and swimming pools and the smell of the tent and sleeping in the car on long journeys through the night.
I remember school and romantic crushes and athletics matches and netball. I remember studying and exams. I remember the crow that sat on the window sill outside our English room. Tess of the d’Urbevilles and MacBeth and Harry 5 and Ant & Cleo. I remember getting lost as my best friend drove us back from Newcastle.
I remember walks with my Dad. And making jam tarts with Mam.
Trying to learn to jive in the front room to old records. The scent of incense or something else on the field at the Durham Free. The bar at the Hammers and Working Class Hero one of the songs on repeat on the jukebox as we dressed like hippies and played darts like working men.
And I would never have thought any of these were the glory days. But they are some of the early memories I take out and unashamedly polish.
And they make me think about these days…because these too ARE glory days. I wonder what boring stories I will tell of them in years to come. I wonder if I will remember that despite the rocks in the road – mostly I was happy now. I wonder if I will have the sense to take those rocks and break them down and build foundations.
