Forgetting To Remember

An entire weekend gone without a single post to mark it. I’m not sure exactly what prevented me from sitting down and writing a little something. I had the time, but somehow the blog world slipped to the back of my mind. I didn’t even have the computer on for the majority of the last three days. It was all very unlike me. Sometimes I have difficulty remembering how I like to fill my time.

Which is why it was so nice to have a reminder on Friday night. I went out with a group of friends I haven’t spent nearly enough time with over the past year. It began with just me and my best girlfriend sitting at the bar (one of the few I can get in to without ID), catching up on all of the new details in one another’s lives since the last time we saw each other. Soon after, at just the right moment, we were joined by two more of our girlfriends. The four of us sat around talking, drinking, laughing, reminiscing on adventures together that I hadn’t thought about in years. It was so wonderful to reconnect with them.

As the night wore on, more and more people began filtering into the bar, and I was surprised to find myself so utterly delighted to see each one of them. It was strange to realize that I’d forgotten that feeling, forgotten how fantastic it feels to run into people unexpectedly, to have everything between you be completely different and exactly the same all at once. It was lovely, really lovely.

The next morning, I walked out of my front door only to remember that getting home at 2am the night before meant that I had been forced to park 7 blocks away. I started to make my way there in the early morning. The world was still sleeping. Everything was so quiet. There were a few other people out, still in their clothes from the night before, stumbling in their tired states, making their way to their cars. We all said hello to one another, somehow fearlessly friendly in the safety of morning. I walked a little further and suddenly realized how happy I was. It was so nice just to be out in the morning air walking. It was so nice to be surrounded by strangers and life, the wind whipping at my face, the leaves rustling on the trees. It was so nice to remember that this was what happiness felt like.

It’s so funny how you can think that you’re as happy as you can be, or will ever be, and then a moment comes along that makes you reevaluate everything. It’s why no one can ever really “have it all,” because there will always be that certain something that they hadn’t even considered. It’s so funny that no matter how many times I have this realization, I always quickly forget it. I like that I forget it. I like that every life lesson is to be learned over and over again throughout the course of a life. I like that we are always learning.

For no logical reason, he was the first thing I thought of when I put my head down to sleep last night. I hadn’t thought about him in a while, and when I did, I thought of him as an abstract, as a friend who died, instead of as the friend who lived. Then last night, there he was, the boy who lived. Every memory of him flooded back through my mind. I saw him standing beside me outside of our dorm, sharing his secret with me. I saw him lying on the grass beside me after a night of dancing, staring up at the stars. I saw him sitting with his guitar beside the fire, singing the song he wrote for his little sister about wanting to be a hot dog. I saw the text message on my phone, telling me he was drunk and missing me and hoped I was well. That was the last time I ever heard from him.

And I cried. I cried for the loss, cried for my friend, cried for a life cut short. I cried too, for forgetting to remember him, for not thinking about him for so long until just then. I cried for the promise I had made to always remember those beautiful moments we shared, to carry them with me throughout my days here on earth. I cried for the promise, broken.

It was an emotional weekend, filled with all of those little remembrances that make life the bittersweet journey that it is. Life is a collection of these ups and downs, these moments of laughter and tears, these revelations that need to be forgotten and remembered. If only I could stop forgetting to remember that.