Memory.

Sometimes I want to make a list of what is gone, so that I can remember that I actually had it once.

Then I think about how sad that list could become. Like a shrine for the past, that will never breathe life again.

And that's just hard because there are more times then not that I just want to be able to hold onto something that was real.

Like a tattoo to the heart or a branding iron to the skin. Just to remember. Just to know that in fact at one point my life touched that. At one point I loved and breathed and lived and laughed with that memory in its action and not just in the recollection of the event.

I don't know what to do with this desire.

I don't know what to do with the countless memories and moments that sometimes rise to the surface and I'm completely unable to let them just pass.

Instead they haunt and they populate and like the intention of ghosts I admit that they sometimes scare me.

How to be bold in this place of smoke and mirrors.

How to be safe in this place of memory and recollection.

I am not sure.

This week has been a lot of resurgence of memory. I have participated in family activities and tradition. I have been incredibly well loved and my time has been purposed well. I would not trade the company of those that I have kept for anything, though sometimes I wish the thoughts of the past would remain below.

And that is just where I'm at right at this moment.