on forgetting

ready for the usual 5 minutes of unedited, raw writing that happens on fridays? well, here goes…

On Forgetting…

Here I am staring at this prompt and my head is threading its way through all the connections.  I wonder if I should share about the ways that I don’t like to forget about birthdays or moments or likes/dislikes. Then I think that maybe I should talk about how I so easily forget visual details and remember instead in feelings and words.  I have to literally sit and force myself to think really hard to come up with mind pictures.  Words come easily, but the pictures escape like bubbles on the wind.

Mostly, though, when I hear “on forgetting,” I am drawn to my own story.  Recently, I spent time sharing parts of my story that I never hardly ever share.  I just push them aside to sit in the corner jumbled—“forgotten.”  I live in this tangled mess of my story that seems like when I pull out one thread a whole host of others come tumbling out.  Partly because I forget to acknowledge my own part in my own story.  I don’t notice, value, or acknowledge myself within the circumstances.  Mostly, though, I intentionally leave myself out of the equation because I refuse  don’t want to play victim even if I was.  Not to mention, that even now, while hindsight is 20/20 mostly I see blurred lines between truth and lies.  So, for the longest time, I’ve just said, “I’m overwhelmed and don’t know what to do with you. Life doesn’t stop for me to figure you out so stay there.”

But, God has a way of saying…I value you. I value your story even the messy parts that not everyone will understand, that you don’t even understand.  So, in between the lines of not even knowing the truth within my own story.  He’s drawing me out to begin to speak.  To give breath to where I’ve felt suffocated.  To take what’s been shoved under the rug by myself and by others and bring it into the light. To remember…with new eyes rather than try to “forget.”  Even if it scares me silly.

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your turn =) on forgetting. (or remembering if you happen to make the connection like i do!)