April went quickly. I remember it in a blur of random events: fighting at the very beginning, away for Easter, a baseball game, Spring Fling, my birthday, classes finish. Boom, onto the next month.

May, on the other hand, was long, drawn-out and despite the fact that it only lasts one day longer than April, seems -- at least from the point of view of my memory -- to span two entirely different eras in my life.

At the start, there was spending all day in the darkroom, writing papers and finishing final projects. And then a hellish few days spent in bed, my tonsils, ear canals and lymph nodes once again plagued by mystery virus. And then came senior week, and more time than I knew what to do with. Then graduation and family and goodbyes. And then another week of hanging out and drinking, which couldn't really be called senior week, but was sort of like a corollary to it. And then came packing. And leaving. And home. And planning for a wedding shower. And again, more time than I know what to do with.

Somewhere in the span of those 31 days, I went from student to graduate. From "in a relationship" to "single". From living in a city with a bunch of friends to living at home. With Little League games to attend and rather severely limited contact with anyone in my age group.

It's not entirely bad, but now that May has faded into June and my ability to track the time is slipping ("Two weeks ago today I was... no, wait, that was three weeks ago today--") I'm terrified that it's turning from what was my life into memory.

A secret: I'm insanely nostalgic about some things. I always look at dates that come up and think of all the things that have come and gone since then. Like how my beer was bottled on May 12th, when I was drunkenly bar-hopping down Walnut Street. Appropriate, I think. Except, in a sad way, the experience has been dated and archived now -- no longer fresh and recent, but now relegated to the past.

A lot's happened since you've been gone, you know.

Sometimes, I get stupid and forget when things are over that you're not supposed to carry on and on. You're allowed to care, but not too much. There are some things you're allowed to get upset over, but many more that you've given up the rights to.

Your copyright is up; it's part of public domain now.

The thing is, as soon as you experience something -- even the minute, hour, or day later, it's become part of the past. And while we like to think of time as linear, something that happened yesterday is still as happened as something that went down seven years ago.

There are no superlatives for 'dead'.

An event's relative recentness doesn't render it any more alive than an older event: it's still part of the past. We might remember it as more fresh, but we're no more capable of returning to yesterday than we are of reviving the Ice Age.

Still, I am reluctant to relinquish my claim to the events of May as the "current" state of my life and label it "memory." I can't let go of some of my old neurotic tendencies and have a hard time retraining my mind when it comes to things it wants to think and feel and say.

Post Script: D-Mac. (Better?)

previously | http://parenthetical.org/ | next