Become Your Own Memory Gatekeeper!

Greetings from a Memorant, which basically is a Latin word for storyteller or story keeper. I welcome you to join me in treasuring your life by thinking about your memories as the stories that have helped you become who you are. The way in which we spend our days collectively becomes memory and, in time, memory defines our lives. What is interesting about our memories is that once we have lived long enough to have built a storehouse of them, we can choose to recall those that best represent who we believe ourselves to be. How someone else remembers an event might be recalled in an entirely different way from how you remember it. For example, my brother and I share many of the same memories but often the details and color of them are different. Does that mean one of us is wrong? Not really. Memories are altered by time, but the event itself is not really as important as how we perceive it and how we make decisions or behave based on that perception. The way we remember something is also defined by all the other things happening to us at the time of the event and the resulting memory is shaped by those other experiences and our feelings about them. Thus, we embellish, tweak, and even redact our memories but ultimately, we end up with a perception of self that comes from the stories we craft from them and we take those stories with us when we last close our eyes to this world. If this is so, then like a writer we must determine the narrative of our history. Letting go of negative memory is not synonymous to forgetting them because forgetting is not possible; rather, it is a matter of what we want to remember most about our lives so that those recollections best create our life story. Which set of memories most accurately define you? What memories have provided you with purpose? Which memories are instructive and help to guide you through your life, your journey?

Perhaps if you grow as old as I, you will want to share your memories to ensure that your loved ones understand where they came from and what people and events brought them to where they are today. Perhaps some of the stories you share will provide a deeper insight into who you are and what your human struggle has entailed. I had initially started this whole process of sharing memories to grant my children a better insight into their family history because I felt that because while our family unit grew smaller and smaller as it dispersed to live in other parts of the country and we lost contact with some and just plain lost others either through distance and time, apathy, or death, the threads that connected them to the past had withered away. The older I grew, the more I wished I had more information about my family history, so I decided to share what I knew with my children in a letter. That letter became this blog after I realized we all have something to share.

When I first embarked on jotting down a few memories to my children, I surprised myself by exploring not just my own thoughts, behavior, and experiences, but those of the people closest to me. In doing so, I realized that it was not so much what I had done, but it was what others had done and said that helped me discover who I was and who I have strived to become. We must live each day; after all, there is no other. But we must also pay attention to the narrative we create while we live. Sometimes we even feel compelled to share that narrative because without a story we become vacuous, our journeys lose their sense of excitement, and we look back to wonder why we were even here. In sharing our stories we sanction one another. Disregard the importance of another person's life and you basically erase your own. Love without taking into consideration another person's needs, and you will soon learn your own needs become irrelevant. In treasuring the life of another person and acknowledging that his or her narrative is as important as your own, you come closer to the one that truly counts, the story of the world with humanity in it. Believing yourself to be the only character on the page, or at least the only important character, is delusional and creates a denouement without integrity, without fulfillment, without meaning. While you should not live in the past, your history brings you to the present. While you are living you also are creating your story, a footprint in time of who you are and have been. Choose your words and your actions carefully, and choose to cherish the memories that have provided your life with purpose and meaning. THEN, go tell your story. Tell it to the mountain, write it down on paper, shout it out to the sea, share it at the dinner table, bring it into a classroom, to your children and grandchildren, and to your best friend. And then honor their stories by listening to them - truly listen because you will discover their stories are yours as well.

In my next post, I will begin to share my stories as I best remember them. I hope you enjoy them and will share your thoughts and feelings through the journey ahead in this blog. I can't wait to hear from you!!