Lindsay Likes...To Remember

The house I grew up in was recently torn down.  I drove by the lot and found nothing left.  Not a tree in sight.  Nothing but a large patch of Oklahoma red dirt.  From a distance I could see the backyard and I could almost see myself playing there in my fort or on the green swing set that my Dad had made from pipe.  In just a few seconds, I can remember so much that happened at that house on Blue Sage Road. 

Some of my memories of the house are the birthday parties like the Dress Up Like Mommy one, the holidays, the time my sister and I spent playing make believe when I was her little Piglet, or playing with our gerbils in the sun room and the pac-man machine in the garage.  Then there was the bike riding in the driveway, the time I looked in the hall mirror and discovered my eyes had suddenly changed from blue to green. I can also remember sitting at the dinner table, taking bubble baths in my parents' bathtub and bumping up and down the steps(no Mom we didn't fall through the cracks). 

My memories of the house on Blue Sage include so much more than the stones and beams and walls of the home.  But remembering the house for me keeps a part of the past somehow more present, if that even makes sense.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that I like remembering things.  Often we take for granted our memory because it seems like our past is almost present.  We can recall images and feelings; see pieces of our own histories play out in our minds and be reminded with just a thought of someone we once knew. When we want to and our health allows us we can figuratively take a walk down memory lane with almost no effort at all.  It's like magic to me.

Of course, remembering the past can for some people be both a blessing and a curse. Things may happen that would be better forgotten. Or, without even realizing it a person can let their memories constantly navigate the present.  This talk gets me confused really. For me, remembering even a small fraction of my past makes me who I am today.  There must be some reason I can remember eating french fries from Church's in the backseat of my grandmother's Cadillac or putting my tooth under my pillow for the fairy.

Isn't it intriguing what we remember and how often we recall things from the past all while living in the present?  Again I'm confused.

I like to remember... while still going ahead.

"Blue Sage"