Re(creating) Memories

   

            ‘Cause the drinks bring back all the memories

And the memories bring back, memories bring back ...

So goes the song by the band Maroon 5.

        For me today it was ‘pics’ bring back all the memories. Today I took up the much neglected task of freeing some space in my google drive by deleting the old unwanted pics. At some point, it was like going against a landslide. Against the rush of memories and emotions with it. Could those moments captured with just a click cause such commotion! Those Frozen moments in time! What to Do with those memories… if some are not so good to memorize! Those moments which slipped out of the hands…which… Could have been better. Why feel at loss?

No, no need to delete them. If… one can look at them DiFFerently.

Chances are there… that we would be able to see things in a "new" light. One could even feel that it was not all that Bad back then.

 And… it comes with a bonus.

A choice.

On how to etch that moment in our memory. 

Here is the recipe…

·        Pick up the crumbles.

·        Weave a new story out of each of them. Not a lie. But one with the bright side in view.

·        Show it to someone and tell that new tale.

So this is what I did. Or…happened to do.

My child came and sat by me while I was going through the old pics pondering which ones to keep and which ones to wipe out. She began to ask questions about the contexts, places, people, and all the whats and whys about the pics. I sieved the stories behind each picture and told her all the pleasant and cheerful bits.  After a while I found myself feeling like … "after all it was not all that Bad!!”. I felt that I Can hold on to the past.. and save the soil beneath my feet…only that I have to see things differently…

That’s how I got the recipe. You can try it yourself.

For example: Do something crazy and daring while listening to a familiar song that is attached to an old, not-so-good memory and create a cheerful brand-new feel… So it won’t be that hard to bear that song later. Frame a few good pictures from a bad time. To let you know that there were happy moments even then.

Visit that place that gave you bad memories with someone whom you can laugh with and laugh out loud at all that went wrong.

The tip is… Never surrender to the past. The steering is still under your control.