Day 41: Did I Write This Already, I Can't Remember

I took a drive in the country today. As much as I love to drive fast on the highway, the pace of the less traveled road is slower, but also more fulfilling. You have time to watch the passing scenery, notice people’s well-maintained lawns, interesting trees, funny signs for local joints, and any number of other colorful roadside items. It started me thinking about all that I have forgotten or missed in my life because I wasn’t paying close enough attention. I live, but I have a bad habit of focusing too much on the past or the future, allowing myself to miss much of my life as it happens.

There are entire chunks of my life that I seem not to remember. Much of high school is gone. A few years in my subsequent seven year relationship with David, though I remember lots of fighting. The years after when I was single and had a string of meaningless or potentially meaningful, but dropped relationships. How could I forget taking someone I cared about to the emergency room for example, but remember the first night we met or simply driving in his truck together? I remember every moment from great vacations with Jeff and the years in New York, but as he will tell you I missed a lot of the in-between.

Oddly enough, I have an excellent long-term memory and can remember back when I was a baby. I remember my crib and the sideways view of my elephant lamp through the bars as I lay there in the low light or my Father changing my diaper. I remember lots of things from childhood, including the day, when I was five that my Father asked for a divorce just as we were about to leave for church. I have happy and unhappy memories, but I seem to remember the worst more so than the best. The rest, is just kind of a haze. So why do we do it? Why do we get caught up in what was or what could be and miss what we have?

I am guilty of this a lot. I am, in fact, guilty of this as I write. I have a pretty great life and a fantastic husband. Unfortunately, I also have the bad habit of taking both for granted. I’m not unusual in that little faux pas I am certain, but it doesn’t make it any easier for those in my life. Friends contact me through Facebook and more often than not, I have no idea who they are. Not because they are older and look differently, but because I do not remember ever knowing them, even after seeing high school photos. As a woman who has lived in five different cities, held nearly 50 jobs, and a half dozen significant relationships, I have a lot of memories I should be holding on to.

Making memories, or rather doing something memorable, seems not to be an issue for me. No, my problem is actually letting myself feel and experience my life rather than focusing on anything other than the present. I am coming to realize that it is nearly impossible to appreciate the life you have and who you are as a person, without first learning to live in the moment. Each day should be savored, every meal, every drive in the country, every date, every everything. It turns out that surviving is the easy part, living is what’s tough. Until I learn to focus on the moment, I will never be able to fully live my life.

Part of living life involves both taking advantage of opportunities as they present themselves and stopping to smell the proverbial roses. Miss one of the steps and you end up bouncing through life, one event at a time, but not cutting a true path. I feel that between the ages of 15 and now I have clinging to each experience until the next presents itself, much like a Tarzan figure swings through the jungle, vine by vine. What slows us down? Is it marriage? Kids? Careers? Whatever it is I haven’t quite found it. I talk fast, think fast, walk fast, and drive fast. Today I drove more slowly and realized that there is a lot to see if you slow down and pay attention. I don’t even remember my own wedding anniversary. It is either the 20^th or 22^nd of December, you’d have to ask my husband to find out for sure.