Food for Thought

On my way to work today I began thinking about Alzheimer's and memory loss in general. I began wondering if it is a disease or a coping mechanism, and whether if it could be reversed, I would want that. I thought about how much time in a day I spend thinking about happier times, or sadder times, or things that have already happened or will happen and realized how little I think of that moment or that day.

Have you ever had something terrible happen to you? Or have you lost someone close to you at a time when you were not close? Do you find yourself remembering the happy times as they encourage you to? Or do you find yourself dwelling on the painful details you wished you could forget?

For me, it is the high road. Time fixes everything, even when I am certain it won't. The more people I lose, or see my dear friends lose, the more I am eventually thankful for their existence. I don't remember petty arguments, or falling outs, or grudges. I only remember how happy I was to have them in my life, and how I wished I had more time with them. Unfortunately try as I may to make note of this and treat the ones I love with this same mentality, knowing full well someday they won't be here, I find myself taking for granted little moments shared between us. I want to take in every moment at the counter top, or every car ride to Newport, I want to remember every word they told me when out for coffee, or on a walk. Of course I can't, and I know that, but wouldn't it be wonderful if you could?

Regardless, my main point was that do you think maybe life takes such a toll on you that eventually you simply cannot take anymore heartache and begin to detach yourself from reality? Subconsciously at first, but then with utter determination to only focus on that minute, or that hour, and forget about the rest of the world. To only remember what was good in your past, and perhaps you are too tired to think of a future, it is not something you want to do but your brain and heart can only hold so much. You want to be with the people you lost again, and you want the people you love here to have time to sit with their friends and learn all that life has to teach.

One of my closest friends this week read, "it is not the years in your life that count, but the life in your years;" and I cannot agree more. I hope she and I live long happy lives together. I hope she is my neighbor in the home and I go to her apartment for coffee on Wednesdays. I hope we live near our friends so we can leave our diapers on their door steps. And more than anything I hope if someday we remember nothing else, we remember how much our lives and each other meant to us now.