Weeding Memories

 

Perhaps it’s my age.  I’m weeding out memories I don’t need.  Memories that bring pain of missing, of regret, of revenge, of guilt.  These days mostly of guilt.

I made a stupid joke to a waitress in Ireland… never mind.  You don’t need to hear the rest.  The upshot is I made an ass of myself and her feelings were hurt.  And here is the 25-year-old memory: the chair I sat in; the darkness of the room; why I made the joke.  What satisfaction I intended to get from thrusting out with this subtle stab.  

I do my best to feel it all, dive into the muck of it all.  Look at myself in it all, what I needed then, what I feared, what was I clawing myself out of?  Digging deep to expose the root.  Hiding nothing.  And judging nothing.

And I forgive myself, for who I was and the part I still am.  Hopefully less of that part of me.

And I commiserate with the waitress.  Up to then we had been in friendly banter.  Did she feel torpedoed?  Affronted?  Did she walk away predisposed to distrust yanks?  I saw her open mouth where no sound came out that told me she didn’t get the joke and thought it was meant for her..

I’m sorry for the role I played.  And yeah it sucks. 

And farewell to you, sad memory, off to a cloudy remote closet somewhere, to rest.