When Memory Lane Leads You Astray

I took a walk down memory lane this week. To be fair, it was on a cold, rainy Wednesday. The temperature dropped overnight. "Miss Miller, it's supposed to snow today. Did you know that?" a student asked. "Maybe it's our consequence for starting holiday music in October," I quipped, not wanting to walk between buildings in the cold without a jacket. This particular Wednesday was one of those days where I wished I was anywhere else.

In a short-lived moment, I clicked a little green icon on my phone screen, pressing a few more symbols until I was there. My deleted voicemails.

Your voice. Your laugh. A string of stories, like audio photographs, the greeting and ending always the same. There are several, but more often than not, you didn't make it to voicemail. There were days I would wait on your call.

Sometimes, memory lane can be all-inviting. An enticing dare to get back a feeling. It reminds me a lot of some of the vices in my life, like fizzy pop.

You reminded me of fizzy pop, too. The thrill of you used to make me feel like sipping a cold soda on the warmest day of the year. Bubbly. Sweet. Smooth. Needed.

In this moment, you make me feel like the soda is long past its expiration date. Flat. Flavorless. Underwhelming as I look back, recognizing that you kept trying to pour into me with empty words. I let you. Now, the bubbles no longer float to the surface. In fact, I cannot see them at all.

It wasn't always like this. You would never guess it ended in this way if you took the same route I did down memory lane. Sometimes, I struggle to separate memories and the way I so wished things would have been. Since childhood, I have often been referred to as "sensitive." As I've grown up, this characteristic has made me feel really in tune with not only my emotions, but other people's emotions as well.

"Do you ever think about how people live years with someone, get married, have kids, only to never even speak again?" I spoke into the phone to a friend this month, somehow stuck on a story that wasn't my own, but still made me feel heavy.

"Yeah, I do. But how would their story be different if it never happened?" the friend replied, continuing "we aren't always meant to spend a lifetime with people. Some people are only a short part of the story."

Then, it hit me. You're only supposed to spend a lifetime with yourself. This little realization had me feeling heavy again, but with a weight of appreciation for all of the people in my life, even those that have came and went.

In different trips while dealing with grief, I have found one of the most unsettling things about memory lane is slowly, as time passes, the path is shorter. Mourning someone who isn't here anymore can be difficult as days turn to years, moving us all along- whether we like it or not. Gradually, fragments of memories go missing. Why must our memories be victims of time?

Time is also accompanied by perspective, so we are often told. Mourning a connection with someone who is alive is also a difficult situation that may cause us to look for little souvenirs from a different time. A time where a call was once expected, but you know better now. A time when we thought those people would be in our lives forever.

Now, it is perspective that jolts me out of a reminiscent trance. I put the phone down and face the present. I hope that wherever you are, your life is better now than what I envisioned it to be, even if I'm not in it. Better than how I felt when you left me those little mementos.

As I wish this for you, I also wish it for myself. Perspective tells me I'm on the way.