Forgetting

We curse and mutter in frustration when we forget something – where we left the car keys, where we left the car (which row did we park in?), what time the meeting starts, your own telephone number, a special anniversary. Forgetting is a vexing and annoying problem that we would love to, well, forget. There are all sorts of products advertised that promise to improve your memory from pills to video games – if only you can remember to do them. Yet sometimes forgetting is a precious gift. Sometimes forgetting is the most amazing, wonderful thing of all. It is forgetting that allows us to move on from every insult and injury. If we remembered in detail every excruciating second of pain, both physical and emotional, most of us would be reduced to recluses afraid of our own shadows. Just about everything worthwhile in life involves some sort of pain but once we achieve it we forget, over time the pain dulls. Were this not the case we would all be only children. There is also the blessing of forgetting things like “impossible” and “can’t”. The amazement of discovering that suddenly you are doing something that you were convinced you could not because you forgot the limitations. Forgetting the rules, forgetting concepts of difference or sickness, forgetting fears rooted in the past and discovering the joy of the moment. If they do create a potion that allows for perfect memory, I will be last in line to receive it. Hopefully that way by the time it is my turn I will have forgotten what I was waiting for and have gone off in pursuit of something that better.