Remembering

This year (2021) — especially this Fall — has put me in a mood for remembering . . .

That sounds a bit contradictory since I’ve mentioned feeling concerned when (like most of those over 65) I cannot locate a word that is on the “tip of my tongue”. We psychologists call it “word-finding difficulty”. It can show up also when the name of someone I have known for years hides from me as I am about to introduce them to another friend. I am less panicky about such lapses now since I’ve noticed that 99% of the time the name or the word comes to me if I relax and wait for it.

Lately, though, something odd and quite lovely — linked with remembering — has been happening to me. When I am occupied with some project (gardening or folding laundry or sewing binding on a quilt) a distant memory — not consciously sought — suddenly appears in my mind’s “eye”. Such memory “pop-ups” are not anything I have been thinking about prior to their appearance. Nor are they anything that I have been wondering about. They appear unbidden. I love these “pop-up” surprises because they are usually about an experience that stirs warm emotions. If I welcome the image or memory, more parts of it seem to unfold so that it is like I am looking into an episode of my past that has been buried deep in my unconscious.

For most of my adult life, I have felt I lived several separate lives. I’m not referring to the idea of past lives nor do I mean that I’ve experienced amnesia and had to start again with no memory of a previous life. No. What I mean is that my life has been a series of starts in one direction that were summarily blocked from continuing by events beyond my control. I have had two periods of my life where I was a wife and that was the most important thing about me and then I was widowed — all before age 35. I had other periods where I was a single parent who worked fulltime and went to grad school to be able to have skills to support the two of us. I had another life time when I developed a private psychotherapy practice and was in demand as a motivational speaker and consultant. Then I lost that opportunity when I was not accepted as a female colleague by a male boss who ordered me to resign. Then (married again) my husband lost his job due to an ethical breach by his boss and the loss included medical benefits. That wouldn’t have been so disastrous but both of us had survived cancer and our preexisting conditions meant we were uninsureable. . .well, you understand.

What I’ve learned through recent therapy is that it wasn’t that I was uncommitted to the life/lives I was living. It was just that there was no possibility of continuing with them due to circumstances. So they felt like a separate life.

Memories from each of these “lives” tended to be left behind. And there were lots of good memories and happy experiences that got left behind and I didn’t remember them.. And those memories of good things are what are coming to me in these memory pop-ups and images. In a very real way, they are “redeeming” each period of my life. What had, until recently, been “lost experiences” now are coming back to remind me of adventures, friendships, love expressed, opportunities made possible by that particular blend of people, specific time periods, and my stage of development.

Remembering takes time, I’m learning. Time is something I now have that wasn’t possible prior to two things: the Covid shutdown that slowed me down; being retired and able to slow my formerly harried and scattered self. And the memories then can emerge. Mostly good memories, a few difficult ones. But they all help me acknowledge that I have had a fortunate life . . . or “lives”. I think I’ll go sit by the fire pit on my patio and see what might pop up tonight . . .