Recycling a memory

  There are those things we save for sentimental reasons. Then we have clutter, junk and I might need it some day stuff. Separating them can present a challenge. I have attempted to identify those items over the years with limited success. I even began writing in a composition book telling the back story to my most treasured items. The hope there being they would be saved from the dump. Today many call that a landfill, but dump, in my opinion, is far more descriptive of exactly what that place is. A place to dump the trash. Items that are thrown out! Rejected, considered useless and not worthy of taking up any space other than in the dump. It's a sad ending indeed. 

  We are being told to recycle and reuse. But you can't do that with memories. Memories must be created individually, by you. The things we treasure are the warehouse of our memories. The material value or usefulness of the object isn't of any great importance, it is the memory that it holds. Now we can share those memories, something I often do, even when others don't want to receive them, but it won't make a memory for them. Well, unless you count their memory of you always telling you those "stories." You have to understand that: memories are always in the first person, everything else are stories. That is true for myself anyway. I have met people that view themselves in the third person, something quite strange to me. In my estimation those viewing themselves in the third person seldom see an honest picture. That is the stuff of philosophy however, and I'll leave that observation right there.

  It is a difficult, if not impossible thing to do; give someone else a memory. That is the idea behind a gift. Some memories are intended to be short term while others are intended to hopefully last a lifetime. Remember being told to think about the person and what they would like before selecting a gift for them? That's simply because what you may think of as a treasure, isn't. It is something I am sometimes guilty of, placing a value on a gift and expecting the person receiving it to value it equally. You should never assign a value to any gift. Gifts are to be given freely, without restrictions, expectations or encumbrances. You just give it away. It may become a memory or just bring a brief smile, you don't get to decide upon that.

  I have written about all of this before. I'm like everyone else, I repeat myself as I become history. I think about what will happen to my stuff. I can't take it with me, most of it is flammable so that is a risk. Still I think of all the memories stored inside those objects. Some hold a single moment in time while others cover a span of years or even decades. Whatever the case is those things are holding my memories and it does bother me that they will go to the dump. It's a certainty, they will eventually go to the dump, the landfill, the recycling center or whatever they do in the future, perhaps blasted in space.      I've thought maybe if I thinned them out, only selecting the most meaningful, they would stand a better chance of survival. Now I'm thinking just the opposite. Maybe I should hold onto everything, overwhelm whoever has to sort through that stuff, thereby prolonging the inevitable. That's sounding like a good plan. Really I don't have any memories I would like to throw away. You do have to keep the good and the bad. It's called balance. Yeah, that sounds right. Maybe I'll go back to cataloging my memories. Let me tell you the story behind this multimeter.