Memories

Odd and random events leading to long held memories.

Spring. Just the change in seasons, just the scent in the air, evokes a distinct memory of a person buried deep in the past.

Osama Bin Laden. I sat in my office building, intermittently hearing from Jeff on September 11. My office building that shook violently as a plane hit the pentagon, watching the plumes of smoke rise in the near distance, waiting oh so impatiently for him to get home from the city. The city, 15 minutes away took 5 hours. I had no hope of getting INTO the city, to my apartment.

How would we even begin to get out of DC? Walk north? Surely one of our parents would pick us up on the PA turnpike if we walked north. Walk to PA. That was my solution, with a rolling suitcase filled with two cats.

Jeff and I left the city after September 11th. We went to West Virginia to lie in the grass. I was unable to process the reactions around me. I needed reprieve from the television. I could handle the attack but I could not handle my fellow Americans. Call me unpatriotic. I’ll take it. If being unpatriotic means feeling uncomfortable with the bombing of another country, if being unpatriotic means NOT celebrating the death of someone no matter how “evil” they are, so be it. Inflicting harm on others will never make me feel better. This has not changed in ten years.

A song. I hopped in my car last night to leave a friend’s house. Without or Without You was playing on the radio. Ah mix tapes. This was on the first mix tape Jeff sent me freshman year of college. (a song off an album we listened to in Mr. Hallman’s 6th grade class)

10 years later. Jeff, married with children, living close to our hometown. Me, deeply independent and happily filling my days with new challenges, surrounding myself with friends, eternally looking for the next connection, always up for some change and ceaselessly daydreaming.

I dated Jeff for what felt like an eternity (at the time). We were never meant to be as evidenced by our life paths. But it is always odd (and welcome) when his memory is evoked by a random scent, a song, an event. It surfaces on its own, without emotion, just a memory.

When do memories and emotions detach?

I wish I knew the answer because there are some emotions that I would like to detach from some memories!