yes, i regret losing all those childhood memories. around 25 they seemed to drop below consciousness, all the details. and why do i miss them? i guess it's the feeling of vitality, impulsiveness, emotion, everything on the surface, no defense against joy and tears. and yet, i hated the vulnerability of being a child. the slightest slight, an offensive gesture, any failure in the classroom or on the sportsfield, tore me apart.
for example, being a bad boy in the fifth grade i got kicked into the sixth. one time, without knowing it, sucking on my ballpoint, i got ink all over my mouth. the teacher sent me out, again as a 'bad' boy, literally the youngest in class at the time. or, to placate me, he made me team captain for a softball game. stupidly, i told a friend i wouldn't let him play if he wasn't nice to me. of course, he ratted on me and i got kicked off the team. i remember watching the game from afar, bawling my heart out.
i've read high school particularly intense, so many negative events imprinting themselves. and supposedly, i can relive those, they being specifically painful. the good times, like kissing a girl on a bridge as a train passed under, or making out on a hayride, those harder to call up. or the time i worked in a dime store, cleaning up, and growing more and more tired of the job until i got fired. why would i want to remember such things?
i'd rather recall making out with a german girl in italy under a sky filled with stars. or riding along the coast of turkey on a white ship and watching the sun drop into the sea. yet, i welcome all memories, even those filled with shame, like being paddled by the principal in front of the whole fifth grade class. or the night of the prom where i dated the queen and when we got back to her place, i was so tongue-tied i could hardly talk.
i presume the desire for all this flotsam and jetsam either has to do with my sense of identity, or the feeling of having lived. probably both. a 83 year old friend going into Alzheimer's said, "I don't want to lose myself." and at the same time the famous druggie Timothy Leary said, "Senility is underrated." and i've heard in china you're blessed if you have a bad memory.
does this all have to do with the rage for mindfulness, living in the present? truly, that is tough to do. i have to be frightened out of my wits, on edge, thrown into the survival mode. at these times every rock gains a clear outline, i leave the trance of thought, of memory, in order to preserve myself. otherwise, as einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge." fortunately he didn't live in brain of our present leader, as we all do.
