"Let the memory live again"

I love remembering. And this week, it isn't just me remembering! With Independence Day on Monday and Cody's one-year mark home from his mission yesterday, and with my crazy ability to remember things, there has been a lot of memories swirling around in heads lately.

Which gets me thinking--why do we remember?  Why don't we just forget everything that we experience, that we say, people we meet, feelings we've had?  As Cody and I have talked, we've brought up lots of different memories that we have, from the trivial and mundane to the life-changing and critical.  I get why we would remember the life-changing/critical experience, but why don't the little memories dissolve?  Why is it that whenever I smell a new stick  of cherry Chapstick, I always think of being huddled under my blanket at Rainbow Academy during naptime playing with my Polly Pocket from McDonald's?  That's such a random memory, and yet, it always comes to the surface when I smell cherry Chapstick.

Some obvious and important reasons why I can think of why we remember is to relate to people, to not make the same mistakes, to predict actions/consequences for ourselves and others, and to be grateful for changes in our situation or in ourselves that have led us to be where we are, even in hard times.

And then Cats comes into the picture. I've never seen the musical Cats, I'm not really sure if I want to or not; I know nothing about it. But I do know that I love the song, Memory.  In the sharing of memories, as we allow others a small glimpse into our experiences and into our becoming process, we live again in that moment.  Yet, while we can remember how we felt--the fear, the thrill, the excitement, the newness of situations we experienced in the past--we also have an added lense of the experiences since that moment. 

For example, as I think about my dating experiences, I've had some really fun dates and have dated some great guys, but I have also had some really awful times and when I remember them, I remember how I felt, even if I do not feel the same way now.  As I've talked with Cody about different experiences I've had with dating--good, bad, and ugly--both he and I came to the conclusion, that even though some of the things we've had to pass through were not ideal and we wouldn't have asked for them, they brought us to where we are in our lives, and that since we've moved past the people or emotions that are involved in our pasts, they pale.  Of course, the memories do not dissolve, they are still there.  But they pale in comparison to the new experiences, the new emotions, the new growth that is happening.  The lense of our experiences and situation now allow us to see more clearly the road that led us here, a road that seemed directionless and dark before.

And that same thought is true with so many experiences in my life, especially since being out here in Utah and during my undergrad years. There was a lot I couldn't see about the experiences I would have, the people I would meet, the person I would become.  Yet the best part is that I'm still meeting people, I'm still having experiences, and I'm still becoming. So, in a way, the memory does live on, because more memories are being made all the time.