~ MEMORIES ~
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Some memories are realities ...
and are better than anything that can
ever happen to one again.
Willa Cather
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When one is young, the world is large
and the thought of exploring it is
exciting. Each year that we live we add
to our memory chest ... and by middle
age those memories are substantial. I
have found as I have grown older that I
remember more of the good things that
have happened in my life than the
bad. The good things seem to become
sharper as time goes by ... and the bad
seem less so. It's almost as though the
memory has turned into a "feeling"
rather than a specific event.
When I work on the fourth and the eighth
Steps, my life flashes before me and,
like one of those calendars from an old
movie, time whizzes by and people who
have been part of my life hurtle through
space ... each triggering a memory.
Memories aren't made more poignant by
time. One might think that a decade of
recurring events might be remembered
with more clarity than a year ... but I
have found in the case of my own
memories that it is the quality and
intensity of time that produces the kind
of memories Willa Cather talks about. A
year or two or three, given the right
circumstances, can produce the feelings
we love our memories to trigger, more
than those experienced during a
lifetime. And a lifetime of memories can
be dwindled into just moments.
ONE DAY AT A TIME . . .
I will cherish my memories ~ Because I may never experience the reality of some of them again.