the baggage

"Many" years in the bag, only one of me

This week has been a roller-coaster of emotional memories.

I'm amazed at the amount of baggage someone with a fairly uneventful life can have. And I don't mean just the emotional baggage you carry to your relationships and your life (you do carry it, don't pretend you enter every experience like it's the first one you have), but also the baggage that means experience, not necessarily maturity, but certainly a huge amount of memories to look back at.

All of this came when I decided to dig up some people from my past and see what they were up to. I first remembered a boy from my school that I hadn't seen in a while and I ended up checking dozens of people, some I hadn't seen for almost 10 years, even though we live in the same city. It was surprising, painful at times, interesting. Even though I knew some of them weren't 14 year-olds anymore, I was amazed at how much everyone changed. I must've changed too, but I'm not sure I changed that much. Bigger faces, same distinctive traits, but it was a really odd experience altogether. Others belonged to a more recent past, but some of their lives were also tranformed in an amazing way.

As I was trying to remember things that had happened, I came across several blanks in my memory, which were very strange because I always thought of myself as having a great memory. My biggest weapon to rescue little details were the journals that I used to write, or even my diary and I'm sure that if I hadn't written these things many would be lost forever. There were people that were mentioned in those journals that I don't remember at all and that was freaky; imagine reading something like "I was at a café and talked to someone for most of the night" - the person's name isn't mentioned and there's no other registry of that person...and I don't remember anything! Who is this person?!Well, maybe I shouldn't have journals at all, that way I'd forget it and move on. (I'm kidding, I like the journals, most of them, at least.)

A trip down memory lane may seem a little useless, but in this case it wasn't that at all. This was very useful to me, to get some perspective over the people that I've come across, to understand their place in my life, to look at things without fear or rejection. I understood some of the cycles, some of the ups and downs, I recognized the beginning of some things and the ending of others - much like the Wheel of Fortune card in Tarot - most things in life are cyclical and temporary.

I felt like time had flown over me and the years gone by without a single warning. I wanted to get back to some things and leave others behind forever. I wanted to get in touch with some people that I'd left behind and let others be. Time is an amazing thing; an amazing teacher, as well, which doesn't mean I won't be making the same mistakes over and over again. Mr. Time, Cronos, or Saturn, whatever you want to call it. Will I ever learn what you want me to learn?

There are places I remember

All my life, though some have changed

Some forever not for better

Some have gone and some remain

All these places have their moments

With lovers and friends I still can recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life I've loved them all

(Beatles - In my life - what else, really?)