I was driving home today after a long, and somewhat annoying (double) shift at 11:30 at night. I drove past this one part of road that always makes me remember the time I was driving in the opposite direction (to high school), but a car pulled out too far in front of me and I thinking they weren't going to stop, so I veered into the opposite side of the road (on the other side of the divider) to avoid it. I remember the car, a silver Corolla, same model and year as mine. I remember the girl who came up to me at school that day and told me off. She had long, straight blonde hair and her name was Michelle. She had cute, round cheeks that I guess might have been good at helping her play clarinet. She said an old dude had told her off for pulling out too far, but she was pissed at me for swerving - of course she was going to stop. I remember not even knowing that the silver Corolla was hers.
I hate that memory. I felt embarrassed that she had said anything to me, even though I know I was probably more in the right. But, without fail, I still think about that when I drive past that stupid stretch of road. Remembering that made me think about other things I remember. Other memories that spring up, unannounced and uninvited.
Like how whenever I drive past the curvy part of that same drive home (the part I love, the part where I always see how fast I can go before I feel like it's too dangerous) I think of Elena. The girl from my graduating class that died the November after we graduated high school. But every time I drive past that curve of road, I wonder why I think of it. Try to remember how she died. If it's related to that stretch of road or if thinking about it so much has made an association of itself. I think of how I didn't know her in life, and can't even remember her last name, or how it was she died. I think of this girl and feel guilty because maybe, if it was on this stretch of road, maybe it could have been me, and she wouldn't have any idea who I was either.
I remember learning that every time we remember something, it rewrites the memory, like data saving on top of an old file. So that things we remember all the time are actually least like what really happened. So maybe that look that I always remember Michelle giving me isn't exactly how it was, but how I remember it feeling. It still feels like she's glaring at me every time I think of it. I still shy away from that look as it haunt my temporal lobe.
I remember thinking (in high school) that gay people should be allowed to get married, but they should call it something else. That "marriage" was for a man and a woman.
I don't remember when I realized how stupid that was.
I remember (in college) when I found out my best friends had been telling me that we were meeting for dinner at 5:15, so that I would be there by 5:30. I remember getting so mad because I hated being that girl - the friend that was always late to everything. I know they did it so we could actually eat together because I eat so slow and if I was late, which I would have been, it would just be stupid. Still, knowing that didn't make me less mad. I remember being mad because I was embarrassed.
I remembered the afternoon that I got so mad I stormed out of the house fuming and screaming. So mad I felt like I was going to burst. So mad I just had to get as far away as possible. I remember storming down the street, trying to make my footsteps as loud and as angry as I could, slapping my Converse against the pavement as I walked, then as I ran because I was too angry to walk (despite my exercise induced asthma). Then I ran faster. I was slamming my feet on the ground so hard it hurt. I remember walking down a hill covered with loose stones and branches and leaves, walking too fast, too fast to be safe, too fast for the person following me. I remember sucking in thin, cold air and it really not helping my asthma. I remember yelling so hard and so loud it made my throat hurt. I remember stripping off my shoes in quick, furious motions and striding fearlessly and stupidly into November-cold river water. I remember standing in the clear, ankle deep water, my feet aching and burning and stinging from the cold and walking in deeper every time my feet dared to go numb. I remember liking it, the hurt of my feet against the pavement, the throat raw from yelling, the lungs tight from lack of useable air, the ache of my legs in the freezing water - it felt like my anger was tangible. I remember being so angry I started tearing up. Maybe it wasn't tangible enough for my anger.
I remember mostly the second I stopped yelling, when I took a break to think of more things to yell and be angry about, or more ways I could say all the hurt I felt inside me.
I remember that second that I turned around and just saw all these perfect stones, pilled on top of each other, balancing precariously. There were all these different stones, different colors, sizes, shapes. I remember thinking how hippie that was, and how fitting. I remember seeing all that perfect zen peacefulness and thinking how stupid, how naive I was to bring all my anger into a place like this, a place so peaceful that all these piles of stones could stay balanced. I remember thinking my anger had felt so tangible it could, and maybe should, have knocked them all down. Back into the November-cold river that I was in and they were not.
I remember that in that same second, all my anger just wooshed out of me, evaporating into the ether. I remember all that anger being replaced by sadness.
I remember taking a breath in and just dissolving into tears. I remember standing in the ice cold water crying, being held as I cried myself out. As my anger cried itself out.
I remember how stupid I felt when I had to put my shoes on halfway back home because the feeling had finally come back in my feet and the gravel was starting to hurt (but hadn't yet because my feet were wet and I didn't have socks - a byproduct of angry house-leaving).
I remembered all those bits of that afternoon because of a song that came on the radio just as I was driving home, pulling into my neighborhood. It's a song I like, but don't love. And after a long, stupid day of work, bickering with one of the guys I worked with, letting all this anger sit and stew in me for my eight and a half hour shift, and on the thirty minute drive home, as soon as this song came on, I knew I couldn't change the station because I had that same woosh-y feeling where all that stress and frustration just left. This time replaced by a calmness and relief.
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| and your eyes looked like coming home - Swifty |
I remember all the memories that haunt me. The times I messed up and someone called me on it. Or worse, when I messed up and no one called me on it, just myself but I was too much of a coward to fix it. Those memories I hate remembering, like the time I peed my seat in first grade, or when this guy in my (college) math class would tell me I had poppy seeds in my teeth and we weren't even friends.
I think, maybe, that feeling of relief was me forgiving myself for all those times. Letting go of all the apologies I didn't make on time, or the embarrassing moments I feel compelled to make myself relieve as part of some penance, or the mess-
ups that don't matter anymore even if I never made them right.
So maybe the next time I think of Michelle I'll finally wave it off, and if not for the purpose of forgiving myself, just because it was high school, and those ghosts can find a new generation to haunt.
