Remember to remember...

It was R's graduation day - a big occasion. One to be remembered for life but all she could feel was relief at having made it through the day and the excitement to move onto the next thing. But L knew better. Her years had taught her to pause, to reflect and celebrate before moving on; and so, she made R stop on the banisters of the school and to take it all in. She reminded R that within a span of a two years, this scary place with gargoyles, columns, and banisters had transformed from something alien, distant and scary into something familiar. It was a moment to remember for life. A feeling to cherish. 

L and R are fictional characters but that is the lesson I need to learn. 

The years have taught me many a things, but one thing I am yet to learn well is to remember the good things in life. The need to pause, reflect and to will something good, into memory. To store it safely, ensconced away in a special corner, far from the corrupting influences of daily living. 

We spend our days and years in constant motion, as an act of survival and before we know years have passed and we are at the end of the journey. It is then that we need these memories. The happy memories of a time gone by, of a life well lived. Of birthdays, of graduations, of celebrations, of successes and of milestones. The pictures, the letters and the notes give you a snapshot of it all but what breathes life into these memorabilia is the feeling you choose to remember them with. 

Hours fade into days, days into months and months into years. With sufficient time, years becomes numbers and what remains from all of those many hours are a few memories. One needs to make these memories sharp and bright else what remains is a fuzzy outline that has little color.  

I wish I had L in my life. To make me pause, and to remind me to make those memories before they are buried under the shifting sands of time; because now when I look back, I remember so little. 

In my efforts to forget the bad and to move on, I have also forgotten the good and life feels a little too uneventful right now. 

And so, I try, to take a moment every now and then - to stop. To wait and to remember what it was like... 

I had people who used to make me do that, but not any more. Now, I need to make my own memories...