An Open Letter to My Best Friend:
I've been thinking a lot about how our memories can be carried by others. I'm rereading those beautiful postcards you wrote me, and I just think about the little moments I'd somehow forgotten, or perhaps not forgotten but had not thought of, and how precious it is to have someone only have to say a few words to bring things flooding back. One of the things I want to discuss in therapy is my bad memory, how many things I don't remember, how many conversations, moments; how easily it all slips away from me. I know it's a side-effect of depression and long-term abuse, the brain seeks to protect us from that which we cannot control. It's strange, though, because it does so indiscriminately, it wipes away the sad and the happy memories, makes it so I feel like I live in a vacuum. I know how profoundly that affects my life, and how I chose to act and what I chose to do.
But. How truly and utterly beguiling and satisfying it is to have someone hold memories for you when you cannot hold onto them fully. How wonderful to be able to revisit memories as if you are a tourist there, to see the joy, to feel it flow through you, to have that nostalgia that cannot be bitter because your current memories with this person are also so beautiful and so sweet. Your postcard of the apartment, talking about reading Will Grayson, Will Grayson, just reminded me of so much else: of the church bells coming through the window, of the piles of books on my window sill, of you singing as you washed dishes, of us sitting in silence on laptops working on essays, on you sleeping on the floor in the living room and hearing you brush your teeth in the morning, of the rickety floors and the horrible floral armchairs that nonetheless were such a part of our lives. I think of the nights spent watching telly, even though I've gotten what we watched (other than Doctor Who). I remember the Indian takeaways now, too, even though I'd forgotten almost how often we had them, and I remember the summer of Wimbledon and getting the train to Dunnottar Castle on that rainy day and how nice it was to explore and how I wish I'd let myself see more of Scotland.
And I think of us, now, I think of times in Boston and Cambridge and Boxford and New York, I think of those vintage shops in Brooklyn and the snow, how it's always snowing when I visit you, how warm that makes the snow feel and how cosy, I think of how many museums across how many states and countries we've visited, I think of you here, in the heat, I think of how different the apartment feels already now that I've had you stay; how much more like home, I think of the changes I want to make to make it even more like home, I look forward to having you here again, in the future, whether it's in this apartment or another. I think of how much more travel and life is ahead of us, and I think of how you anchor me and make me believe that future to be true even when I doubt it for myself.
Really, it's just thinking of you, all of you, and whether or not I remember everything accurately enough almost doesn't matter, because my heart remembers. It is why I cannot help but be calmer when I'm speaking to you, am near you, see your face pop up on my screen in the morning. Memories are important, but so too are the ones that help us remember them.
I love you.
