The worst part of holding onto memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared. -Lois Lowry

 

Sometimes, rather unfortunately, I am blessed with this ridiculously capable memory. I remember all sorts of menacing things at really inappropriate times. Like when someone is telling me really important information regarding something super crucial in my life or when I'm watching a television show that weirdly correlates with my life. Or more frequently, when I'm trying really, really hard to fall asleep.

I mean, alchol helps but not entirely. And like my homegirl Gillian Flynn once said, "I always believed that clear-eyed sobriety was for the harder hearted." Because let's be realistic: remembering this shit sober is just terrible. Whiskey soaked memories are seemingly less painful. Anyway whatever, my point is that sometimes, no amount of whiskey, champagne, chianti, or drunken sexual escapades can disentigrate those memories that keep you up at night. Sometimes it takes years of therapy, a bout of amnesia, or good old fashioned repression to start feeling better.

Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart. -Haruki Murakami

The truth is that there are so many things I can recall so vividly, even when I try really hard to block them out. Some of them are good things that I like remembering, like the time I saw my boyfriend get off the taxi at the inner city Chicago race track I was at with my parents. (He proposed fifteen minutes later. And I said yes.) Or the waves crashing through the rocks on the beach in Mexico while I drunkenly rode around the island with my husband. (I burned my calf on the vespa a few minutes later.)

But some of them are terrible things that literally make me cringe or feel physically ill when they run through my weary (and often crazy) mind. Like the time my insolent ex-boyfriend broke a plastic lawn chair over the hood of my Mustang. (I cried and left his house in a weepy frenzy mere moments later.) Or the time that same asshole ex-boyfriend screamed at me at his stupid company Christmas party because he claimed I was dressed like a whore. (I cried, promised myself to buy a completely new and acceptable wardrobe, and rolled my eyes the whole way home.)

Not to mention all the shitty mistakes that I've made on my own. Those are never fun to relive. Either way, I've been there. Not a picnic.

What's weird is despite the incredible memory, I'm also really good at blocking things out. I've endured a lot of really bad experiences (not to invite you to my pity party but...) and I'll be real with you: a lot of them were a direct result of my own behavior. But somehow, I've just taught myself to push them to the back of my whiskey soaked brain.

All of those awful things I've encountered seem like an actual lifetime ago. To be honest, if I sit and think back to those times, it's really difficult to remember certain aspects of the situation. I barely even remember what that miserable, abusive, overgrown man child looks like now. I only remember when certain things spark my memory like a shitty Stone Sour song, for example. Or when I see Ray Liotta in anything other than Good Fellas. (He looks like Ray Liotta right down to the goddamn sneer.) When people say they're from Patterson, New Jersey like it's something to brag about or when I hear men say to their girlfriends, "Hello, Beautiful!" Ugh God, now I need a drink.

Naturally when those things happen and I remember all of that bullshit, I get mad at myself for being weak enough to relive it. Weak enough to even care. I drink more and hear my husband's patient voice in my head saying, "The past is in the past for a reason." (That man is of very sound mind. How he ended up with yours truly, I'll obviously never know. I'm just hoping he's too drunk on amazing food to figure out what a mess he's gotten himself into.)

The worst memories stick with us, while the nice ones always seem to slip through our fingers. -Rachel Vincent

I used to have this girlfriend who had a severe problem with this exact thing. She was pretty challenged when it came to letting things go and unfortunately for her, it completely ruined her relationship. She would incessantly bring up all this old stuff that may or may not have happened between them.

She had serious trust issues and was apparently hell bent on living in the past and punishing her then boyfriend for whatever had allegedly happened. I mean, I'm not a developmental psychologist but the girl was a straight up nightmare. A wannabe trophy wife, scandalous redneck, color contact wearing nightmare. I shudder just thinking about her.

In fact, to this day, even though they're both with someone else, she STILL rambles on about it. She's constantly posting these snarky little ecards and saying on Instagram about real men, ex-boyfriends, and blah, blah, blah. All the while claiming how she's over him, better off, and finally really happy. (And here I am, on the other end of Instagram saying, "I can totally tell how happy you are by the way you NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR STUPID EX-BOYFRIEND." I'm trying to be more positive this new year. No one's perfect.)

She isn't inspired by whatever new found freedom she might have gained from getting dumped by him. She just can't let him go. And she seems to be under the misguided impression that people don't realize she's actually a whiny, lying, little brat. I just want to say to her, "Way to not give him the power..."

Like I said, I'm trying to be better. I'm attempting this whole nonjudgmental thing for the new year but I always remember, when we were still semi legitimate friends, I would say to her, "You've got to just let this stuff go. You can't live in the past. You've got to look at what's in front of you." And she'd nod silently before rambling on about what he did, how into himself he was, and how ridiculous it was that he went to the gym at five in the morning. (Even though he was going to school to be a goddamn nutritionist. Let's be real: he probably worked out more than J. Woww's personal trainer fiance turned baby daddy.)

And it wasn't as if she was clinging to this stuff because she wanted to learn from the experience. It wasn't like she was trying to revel in her turmoil like some sort of twisted, tortured, jazz musician. It was like she wanted to make him miserable. Or maybe, like she liked being miserable. She literally thrived off the drama. (And by the looks of her poor me, over dramatic, I like to wear cowboy boots with sweatpants Instagram, she hasn't cut off the life force. She still apparently lives for it.)

Moral of the Crazy: This is going to sound really cliche but don't relive old shit. (Because at least for me,) it was bad enough the first time around. Although experiences of life, good, bad, or otherwise, are unusually unparallelled, drunkenly drowning your sorrows is only helpful in writing. I just feel that memories are meant to be learned from. The good ones, remembered fondly and the bad ones learned from, rather than relived over and over again. I mean, if I thought everyday about that time my ex-boyfriend dropped me off at the side of Ridge Road during a thunderstorm, I'd really have a drinking problem.

... I was wearing my favorite dress.

But I showed his ass: I go to the salon literally walking distance away from where that happened every two weeks to get my nails done. And I NEVER think about it.

One of my favorite things about life is everyday you're given a new chance to do things different. You're given a chance to wake up and start the day with a fresh glass of whiskey and a bright new attitude. A chance to focus on your strengths, rather than your weaknesses. Remember all the good aspects of your life, rather than the shitty things that attempt to bring you down.

Because living in the past for your whole life just makes for really shitty dinner conversation. And because nobody likes a cry baby.

The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there. -L.P. Hartley