Graduation Rumination XVI - To Romanticize the Memories

May 8, 2015.

I think we have a tendency to romanticize the past. But what’s so wrong with that? We seek to remember thing better than they were, we allow the negative memories to slip through the cracks. We look back on the hardest times and somehow only see the good. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism, maybe it’s a way of coping with the pain, or maybe it’s just the best way we know how to preserve something we’re losing touch with.

I know for me, as my time at Gordon is winding down I’ve spent a lot of time looking back over the past four years. Looking back on all of the memories, all of the good times shared with old friends, new friends, once friends. I’ve spent a lot of time remembering the nights my laughter drove me to tears and when my voice got so loud I was fined. I remember the late night talks, and the weekend trips, and the long, destination-less drives. I remember the dance parties, and the loud singing, and the progress I’ve made playing guitar. I remember the selfies, and the mirror pics, and the shaky homemade videos. I remember the movies on the quad, and the sports I’ve played, and the random run in’s with people around campus. I remember the worship nights and the walks through the woods, and the gatherings of people. I look back on these past four years and this is all I can see, the good is all I can see. Because all of the fights, all of the rejection, all of the heartache, all of the insecurities, all of the failures and shortcomings, all of the loss, all of the hopelessness, all of it slips away. When I look back on these past four years the pain I once felt feels distant, the people I once lost don’t seem so estranged, the bad times don’t seem all that bad anymore. Because I no longer see the bad moments as the stinging isolation it once was, but as the catalyst for growth that it became. And because it’s the good memories, the best moments, the ones where my gut felt stiff and sore from laughing that trump any pain. I don’t look back and hold onto the hurt, I look back and hold onto the happiness I’ve felt and shared. I look back and hold onto the good, the great, the best. I look back and the memories I take forward are only those.

So maybe I’m romanticizing, idealizing, but who cares? Why would we need to hold onto these moments of incredible hurt and insecurity? Why would we want to? We should never lose the growth that they brought us, and we should always be grateful for the way it’s shaped us, but we don’t need to hold onto it, replay it over and over, ask what-if, what-if. We don’t need to carry it with us. We don’t need to always see it every time we look back. So maybe I am perceiving the past as better than it was, but I don’t see any harm in that. I am thankful for every moment, every good one and every bad one. Because without them I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am today. But when I look back on my time here, all I want to see is the good. So I’ll idealize, and I’ll romanticize, and maybe because that’s the only way I know how to say goodbye.

[alc]