Please, No More Photos
The past is hazy and cluttered — with it, come waves of sentiment and doses of elusiveness because I feel it, but cannot remember it.
I’m reading 1984 by George Orwell. In his story, the concept of past, present, and future are distorted to the point where nothing is objectively true. No one knows the year. No one can tell which facts are fake and which are real. No one has any control over their own destiny.
I feel like I’m in 1984.
I feel like I’m in 1984 because I forget how I got here — I forget the flickers of growth and adulation over the past year. I lose details on a day that was particular and intricate and full of energy. I forget the moments that rearranged and organized my subtle inclinations on the goodness of life.
There was this one phase.. this one phase where everything felt good. And I mean good as if the universe was set up to be good. Like it didn’t matter what I did, I couldn’t screw it up, because God decided “this will be good!”
And it was good.
It was good like when you’re a little kid on vacation… and everyday feels permanent. Or like when you’re 6 and it’s Halloween or Christmas. Just that feeling of lightness and assurance that what’s to come is big — it’s big and good and you are ready for it. You don’t know exactly why it’s happening, but it’s happening, and it’s happening to you and everyone can sense it.
Yeah.
For a few months, life felt dreamy; like it was answering some deep questions.
What scares me is being left with only memories.
It’s often that I go back in my camera roll to see what happened a year ago on this day. Just to get perspective. And what I find is that it’s so easy to forget.
Without visual evidence, I can’t connect experience to memory.
I think I have really poor memory. Or maybe my mind works slow and I’m actually just stupid and dumb. Either way, remembering feels like reaching into a bag grasping only air — I feel nothing despite knowing there’s something.
I forget the friends who were with me. I forget the moment I realized I like being around you. I forget the newfound happiness of being someone you knew and being considered family. I miss feeling like we had a chance.
I forget the fluttery vibrations of adventure. I forget the rush of doing something I thought I’d never do. I forget the many moments of awe and wonder and thrill… which are now relegated to only a single, brief thought.
I forget the fruitions of pursuing what I considered passion. I can’t remember how it felt to feel it happening. The realizing. All the excitement and instant gratification has sloped off into something regular and normal.
I think about my life — like my whole life.
It scares me to know there are experiences I will never remember in detail and there are pockets of emotion I will never feel again or put a name to. There’s maybe an entire life-altering experience, which I will never know in clarity… only subtly in my subconscious.
I think about all the photos I don’t have.
Which sucks because how else am I supposed remember?
… I can’t remember.
And sometimes it feels like my fault.
