The Nexus

It happened this year, like it happened last year and the year before. I arrived in Tucson, the city of saguaros and heat, at 2 p.m.

By 5 p.m. I’d pulled out every photo album I could find and started flipping through them, smiling when I saw my mother’s familiar face peeking out from beneath whichever hairstyle was trendy at the time, and questioning faces I didn’t recognize.

But this year was different; my grandmother had a treat for me.

A new photo album. Filled with pictures of me.

Ecstatic at the chance to talk about myself, I grabbed the album and started quickly flipping through the pages.

That was when it hit me.

A sort of sinking feeling, like cold guilt mixed with a bit of melancholy and a hint of frustration. It started slowly, in my stomach, then worked its way up to my chest.

I didn’t remember any of them.

A picture of me at the age of 6, sitting on a pony I don’t remember.

A picture of me at 8, with my arm around a girl I can’t name at a birthday party I don’t recall.

Now, a 17-year-old forgetting a pony from 11 years ago isn’t unheard of, but I didn’t remember any of the pictures. Vacations, birthday parties, middle school dances— I could hardly remember them at all.

Some of them I could vaguely recall, like a dream, the faces and scenery were fuzzy and unrecognizable. Others I couldn’t remember at all.

It was at that moment that I discovered my greatest fear: forgetting.

I’m not sure if I have a particularly bad memory, or if it is just human nature to forget things somewhat soon after they happen, but the idea of not remembering friends and time spent with my family terrifies me.

I suppose it is unrealistic to want to remember every joke and every laugh, to want to freeze the moment when you are happy and keep it someplace so it will never get fuzzy and unrecognizable. But I want to keep it all forever.

When I got back home, I tried to take pictures of my friends and my dogs. I tried to take pictures right when we laughed so we could be laughing forever. I tried to memorize jokes so I could write them down and keep them funny for the rest of my life.

But even after a week, I was forgetting just what my friend said that was quite so funny and why I had 30 pictures of the same four people at various parts of the same beach.

I can’t remember everything. That sounds obvious and plain, but it is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to admit.

In 20 years, I might not remember the exact shape of my friend’s face or the way they laughed. I probably won’t remember the joke, or the time or the place.

But if I’m lucky, I’ll remember that we did laugh, and that I did love my friends, even if I don’t recall the sound of their laughter.

I don’t always need to know every second of my life. I don’t need to memorize every conversation and joke to remember that I was happy.

So in the mean time, I will laugh harder and love more, I will have more fun and spend more time with my friends and family.

That way I know that I will always be able to remember them in my heart, even if I don’t recall them in my mind.