Memories

Life is made up of moments, and those moments become memories. Some moments we hold onto so hard they burn themselves into the very depths of our souls, never to be forgotten for the rest of our lives. Some moments we didn’t even realize meant so much to us until we realized they stayed with us for some reason or other.

I remember what the air smelled like in the Summer in the late ’80s. The smell of the dirt, the blue of the sky, the morning dew on my bare feet. The heat of the sun on my skin and running just for fun, riding a bike for hours. I remember the way the bark felt on the apple tree I climbed almost daily, the way the branches were on the inside, my spot that I would sit in, the spot that my brother sat in, and the place his friend sat and we would talk and hide from the other kids when we just wanted them to go home. I remember the way those small green apples tasted, bitter. I’ll never forget the pain of stepping on a chestnut bur barefoot. Trying to pull the little prickles out stuck in the skin just like splinters, brutal. Legos, ha, step on chestnut bur or stinging nettle or glass.

There are other moments we treasure, a first kiss. A first kiss is something special, it can make or break a connection instantly, chemistry is one thing, but false chemistry is another. You ever kiss someone and feel NOTHING, that is equally as memorable as kissing someone and having the world standstill. Now that is memorable, a spark so strong, you forget that other people exist and time flows differently. Like it slows inside the bubble of the two of you and speeds up everywhere else and before you know it it’s 3am and you don’t know where the time has gone.

Late nights, beneath the night sky wrapped in each other’s arms. Laying next to each other and hearing only the sound of the rain. All the stress and worries disappear for just a little while and you feel like you can breathe again. Deep conversation contemplating the very existence of existence and silly moments full of nonsensical laughter.

The first time your baby laughs or calls you mom. The weight of them in your arms, sleepless nights, and then suddenly time flies and they’re not so little anymore, closer to having their own babies than when they were babies. You wonder where the time has gone. Moments passed, now memories. In the end, it’s all any of us are left with and I finally understand now why, I was always told to make a lot of them and make them good. Our memories replay in lonely times, filling the silence. Scenes we wish we could experience again, things we wish we could forget, things we would like to change or do differently. Things and people we will never experience again because they ran out of time and all we have left is a collage of moments of them, just memories.