Unforgettable Night of Forgetting…
I recently had a night on the town, the first I’ve ever actually had. It was fun overall, because I had a good time interacting with the people I was with. I admit that I had several moments of discomfort and boredom, though, because I was there to be there, not because I necessarily wanted to be there. I tried to make those moments go away by focusing on what was going on in front of me, not inside of me. I was generally successful at this, and that is good.
At one point, I met a man of a philosophical leaning who engaged me in conversation by asking my name and then asking to thumb wrestle. I thought this was great, because if there’s one way to get me to enjoy myself, it’s to play silly games that cause me to laugh with delight. We thumb wrestled while talking, and then decided to step it up to arm wrestling. We arm wrestled a bit, and conversation became more intense as our biceps strained and bulged. He kept asking my very pointed personal questions, and I answered them with complete honesty. He expressed surprise each time I answered a question so bluntly, and that led him to ask more questions. Eventually, our first bout of arm wrestling ended, and he went off to do something else.
He kept coming back to talk to me, though. We arm wrestled a couple more times that night and just sat talking a little while as well. At one point, he came up to me and said, “Jane, it was nice to meet you. Thanks for talking with me, I learned a lot from you. I’ll let you get back to your night of forgetting.”
I felt something at those words, they really went right to my core. My response was the first thing I could think of: “Hah, I can’t forget, but thanks.” And he just looked at me with sadness. I mean, this guy had genuine emotions of sadness and care for me, and he’d genuinely meant that he hoped I could forget some of my own sadness for at least some small time. That was touching to me.
It dawned on me, at that point, that the reason that so many people seek constant hedonism is so that they may Forget. I think I already knew that, but it was not until that point that I understood it fully.
See, my intent for “a night out” wasn’t to forget, it was simply to have a new experience. It wasn’t to erase my past, it was to see if I could create a piece of a new future. It wasn’t to mask my pain, it was to find the pleasure of life in spite of it.
But, I realized then that the man assumed I was trying to forget my pain… because that’s what people do. I think it is a natural thing to try to forget pain by any means. I definitely understand this – I spent many years pushing my pain away with self-righteous affirmations of identity, denial and anger and justification; I just wanted to forget so I could move on. I didn’t deal with my pain, the reasons behind my pain… I just tried to beat it down with a stick and make it go away. I could not escape that pain without facing it and dissecting it and accepting it as a real experience. I see where he was coming from; I also understood then why he was so surprised I was honest about my experiences: I wasn’t afraid of them.
I feel like that is very significant in my growth as a human. It is true, I can’t forget. Honestly, I wish I could. My life would be so much better if I could forget my past experiences and just take up life from where it is now. I fantasize that I’d have a really good life if I could do that. But, it’s not possible. So, I have to break down the past pain so that I may have future peace. I’ll be the first to admit that I get lost in pain too often. This isn’t the point, though.
The point is: each time I break, I re-form a little stronger. Each time I fall, I climb up a little higher. Each time I fail, I try again a little harder. It hurts me, yes, all the time. Little things trigger painful memories or thoughts, those thoughts sometimes trigger very deep levels of sadness. But, even in my sadness, I recognize that I need to feel these things so that I may accept them as real, so that I may accept that my feelings are not worthless… that I am not worthless.
I am crying trying to relate this to you, friend, because it is a work in progress. I feel heartache every day and I cry a little every day. I get very tired. I feel like giving up. I want to withdraw into the safety of a hardened heart, because I would not have to feel anything. I know, though, that I can’t do that. I know that it will hurt me more in the long run to try to escape through apathy.
Because those feelings don’t go away. Because I can’t forget.
At this point, I can’t think much about the future at all. I can’t even consider anything beyond how I will make it through today. When I try to “plan the future”, I just feel upset and hopeless because I remember that I will still be in pain in the future, and I think my plans will be fruitless anyway, or be destroyed despite my best efforts. The future causes me pain, the past causes me pain. The present? Well, I am in present pain if I think of the past or future. So, I want to stay in the present to stay out of pain.
Lately, I’ve learned to pull my thoughts back to NOW by reminding myself that if the thought is not real (is an imaginary scenario or self-induced line of insult), it is not relevant to my life. I still feel the ache in my heart or anxiety in my stomach, but at least the feeling dulls to a pang instead of an encompassing torture.
I don’t know if I will make it to the future. I feel a sense of doom, like I will die any minute. But, all I can do is make it through this minute. Each minute seems like eternity. But, it’s not. I’m already halfway through this minute. I’m making it into the future minute by minute, even if it’s not in pleasure or pleasure-seeking and even if I feel dread and despair a lot of the time.
I can’t forget my memories… but I can learn how to deal with the pain they bring. I can grow my sense of worth and confidence, I can make my way to a time when I will be able to cope without hiding from the pain and without drowning in it. Someday I will have an identity that speaks to who I’ve found myself to be by intentionally trekking through my feelings and memories.
That Night of Forgetting will be Unforgettable, because I learned then how important it is to me not to try to forget.