Reminiscences

The images of my childhood are blurred portraits. Blurred, but not inferior. They are grand and royal and beautiful. They serve as a vessel to all the happy events and the cherishable memories. The music that used to play in my brother's room, the smell of phenyl from when the floors were mopped, the sound of the fan turning at maximum speed during summers, mother's morning call on Eid and midnight hugs on my birthday--they are retained in my memory like the back of my hand; and are evoked at the sligthest mention, smell or sound of it. They are retained in my memory, not in details, but in emotions.
Recently, I visited an amusement park from one of those memories and it had suddenly shrunk in size from what I could recall through my childhood memories. And so had that hospital that I used to visit as a child for my vaccines. It made me realise that all our memories are prone to subjectivity.
It is always emphasised how childhood days are the best ones-full of hope, devoid of responsibilities. I dare to disagree. I believe that the nostalgic overview of our childhood is what renders those days as beautiful instead of our childhood itself,  just like looking back at youth seems beautiful when we're old. I don't know if there is a scientific theory to prove this, but I believe that we have the power to manipulate our memories. So, if something good happens with us, we amplify that moment in our head to resemble a fairy tale; and when something bad happens, we manipulate it into gorgons chasing after us. There's really no way to figure out how much we've manipulated the actual events to suit us except re-visiting them. But, only places can be revisited, not events. Hence, the grandeur of a moment is lost in that moment itself. What remains with us is a fragment of that moment. The rest is a story; our story, the way we want to make it look.
So, the next time you look back at a memory, know this---it's more a part of you than you believe it to be. It's not just something that happened to you,but something that happened in you.

Comments

  1. Izeen22 January 2018 at 06:46

    I never thought of it this way ! But now i realize that we do exhaggerate that fragment of memory in our mind just to let it be more special amd remain with us . 🍃

    ReplyDelete

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