-Absolutely Fabulous Memories

Have you ever tried to remember a movie line or a song lyric or that perfect sarcastic comeback, only to find that your mind draws a blank, your tongue fails you and that you have nothing to say at all. Then four days later you’re standing in the kitchen making noodles and then your memory kicks in and you end up with a slight case of turrets. My housemates were caught off guard when I yelled “yippy ki yay muthafucka” at my spaghetti. For the record the noodles did decide to clump together and be sticky. I find that these little brain farts have been occurring more and more since summer has started. I don’t want to say that I am off my game or even more flighty then usual, but I can’t seem to remember to memorize my thoughts. All the little things keep slipping through the cracks while the big topics are crashing down creating even more of them. Topics like love, heartbreak, family and confidence have rifled my last week so badly it would look like Swiss cheese. The ironic thing is that none of them were directly related to me, it feels as though the minute I forget to remember my life, my life is filled with living. I had already decided to lay low for the summer and try to regroup and prepare myself for the coming fall semester. My plan was to work hard and rest hard; I wanted to know what the dog days of summer were really like. I had intended to have a minimalist kind of summer, and so far its been busier then an Edina Monsoon outfit.

Being in the midst of all the activity and rushing makes you simultaneously learn and remember who you are and what you are made of. Lately I have been placed in situations where I seem to be the parental figure, both nurturing and instructing. Listening to what the problem is and figuring out the instigators, the actions, the results and the possible remedies to the event at hand. And let it be known that if I was standing in for the role of parent, the role of troublesome children was also filled. I might even say overflowing, but a parent never would admit to such a thing. In the eye of the shit storm, I had a strange brain fart, or I guess it would be more of an anti-brain fart. I remembered that I realized what I was doing; I knew how to caudle and caution, how to warn and wane, and how to heed and holler. I was doing all the grown up things I can barely do in my own life, for the lives of those around me. By forgetting to think about what I should be doing, I somehow remembered exactly what I need to be doing.

I think that things can get so cluttered sometimes and we can tend to over think and over analyze that we think it into something else. When you focus on something for too long it can just get bigger and bigger until it is the only thing that fits in your brain. But once you remember to forget about it, and think on something else, everything seems to be put into perspective. Your major isn’t really anything more then a couple words on a slip of paper. Your job is just an activity that helps you pay the bills and afford pizza and banana republic. Your relational title is just a social formality. Your goals and aspirations can change as often as the box office leader, so there is no point in remembering to think about it all the time. Being a nurse or an accountant or a marine or an English major isn’t who you are, it’s just what you think about. Who you are is what makes how you think, the ways in which you handle your situations.

When you don’t want to think about who you are, when you forget about it entirely and focus on everybody else, that seems to be when you really remember what you are made of. So remember to forget some things every once in a while.