Tag Archives: memories

Total recall…or false memories

black-blackandwhite-fun-grey-memories-favim-coThere is a new movie out called Total Recall. I have not seen it and this is not a commentary on that movie.

Rather, this is about what we remember and what we choose to forget.

I know for a fact that three people will have three different interpretations for any particular event. They may get the facts right, like who married whom, but their memories of the service and wedding will be different.

I am wondering if what I remember is really what happened or could I have been convinced that I remembered wrongly?
People are quick to interrupt us and tell us how “it really happened.” I have been witness to many a marital fight that was based on who remembered “correctly.”

How have my memories been changed/affected by what others tell me?

When a child reports abuse and is told that it did not take place, how do they reconcile the feedback vs. the facts. When someone tells you that you were “rude” such and such a time and you don’t remember it that way, what do you do with the information? When an abused woman tells her mother-in-law that she is being beaten, will the mother-in-law believe? And how will that change the intensity of the woman’s memory in the moment?

Do you ever doubt your own memories?
Have you ever been challenged on your memories and have you felt like you are losing your mind?
By this I mean, you really, with absolute clarity, recall some event, only to be set upon by others, hell bent on changing your mind.

I don’t mean the give and take that happens between good friends, or people teasing you. I mean the mean-spirited verbiage that can erupt when you least expect it. I believe that people attack our memories when the memory makes them uncomfortable. Of course, I have no empirical proof of this statement…it is simply an intuition that I have having lived for more than 58 years.

Will they try to talk us out of our memory if it was a favorable memory to them?

Do you ever talk people out of a memory they have of you?
What would you hear if you asked a TRUSTED friend about something you both experienced together?
Would you be surprised at what they remembered? Would you be happy or upset?

Would you think that they judged you?

Would you judge them or yourself based on their recollection?

I have found that memories are like water….they slip away quietly but leave evidence of having been there.
I am oftentimes surprised by the amount of time I waste trying to wrestle a memory from its hiding place.
When this happens, it usually means that I am trying to “build a case” to prove something in the present.
I have come to loathe “case building.”
I hate when I do it and I despise when someone does it to me.

So, the next time you remember something, ask yourself these helpful questions:

  1. Will this help me to navigate what’s happening in the present?
  2. Why do I feel the need to unearth this memory now? Will it be a joyful experience?
  3. If it will bring me pain, what can I learn from the pain that I haven’t already learned?

Life is but a series of memories…make sweet ones.


Love & light,


The hourglass called LIFE…

One of my favorite songs is called BREATHE by Anna Nalick. One of the lines in this wonderful song is “life’s like an hour glass glued to the

The visual is quite glaring, no flip-overs. What’s done is DONE! My take on this is what’s done is not necessarily GONE!
How can that be?

Yes, time passes, but the memories and lessons last as long as they serve me.

Here is the thing that gets many of us into tons of trouble…

I can make sad memories last FOREVER. I turn them every which way from Sunday. I ponder about things I could’ve done, should’ve done or would do if I am ever in that same situation again.

What I am really doing is wasting the sands that are flowing through the hourglass right now. Instead, if I try to learn what I did well and promise myself that I WILL NOT repeat what I did that brought sadness then I am most surely using those grains of sand to the best possible end.

I have hourglasses strewn throughout my home and office and I often just flip them over to remind myself that those grains of sand really do represent my moments here on earth…moments that are precious and perfect.

Go out and find yourself a beautiful hourglass and keep it in view. When you feel yourself wasting time or fretting about things that cannot be changed, like the weather or a cranky family member, flip the hourglass. This can work one of two ways:

1.) Fret for as long as there is sand left on the top and make it a best fretting you have ever done…then be done!


2.) Use it to remind yourself that the grains represent precious time and start being grateful for all the good in your life.

Time is precious…
You are precious…
Life is precious…

Happy hunting for your hourglass!

Love and light

I walk along the city streets…

I walk along the city streets…

And my memories escape from the corners of my mind…

Have you ever had the chance to retrace steps from your past without people from your present?
By this I mean, without your spouse or children or dog or siblings?
Perhaps to walk your alma mater?
To visit the place where you had your first job?
Visit the place where you had your first meltdown as a younger version of yourself?

I highly recommend it.
Recently I had the great fortune to spend some extended time in NYC.
After getting all my work done that was on my schedule, I found myself with ONE free afternoon and night.
No one to meet, no work to do and no schedule to keep.

So I took the subway to the station where I used to catch my train to go home to queens. The station looked worn and old and familiar.
I exited and found myself staring at the doors of Bloomingdales.
In my distant past, I felt like I did NOT belong in that store.
Only rich, well heeled people should go in there was my thinking.
Now mind you, I have been back to shop many times, but THIS time I was walking in the shadow of my 21 year old self who was so very scared and believed in scarcity of everything. Scarcity of LOVE, scarcity of MONEY, scarcity of a decent JOB that would afford her a place of her own.
Nothing came easy to my 21 year old self, except studies. I could study with the best of them.
I held on to that belief and I knew that if I just kept working my minimum wage job and taking 18 to 20 credits per semester that ONE day, I would land on my feet.

I had to hold that belief for dear life because it would have been so very easy to give up and just settle for an ordinary life. I so desperately did not want an ordinary life.
I felt that I wanted my life to mean something more than all the models that I had seen.
I would see co workers who made as little money as I did and they could live in NYC because they had parents who paid their rent.
I was so very jealous.
Why was life so hard for me?

So last week, as I walked in the shadow of that 21 year old, I reached back to almost 35 years ago and told my younger self  Thankyou!
Thank you for never giving up.
Thank you for not succumbing to the fake promises of bright lights and fleeting loves.

I visited the place where I saw my first French movie and where I had felt so sophisticated because I had never seen a movie in a different language. This time I purchased a ticket as a well seasoned global citizen and settled into the familiar padded seats and I saw another French movie and smiled to myself. Catherine Deneuve is still so very beautiful, and I could tell from her face that lots of time has passed. She has aged well and so have I.
I accept my aged face so much more easily than I ever could accept my young face.
I no longer look for flaws, now I am so grateful for what looks back at me.

I hear tell of people who go to high school ten unions and they see their old flames and break up their families chasing the past. This is NOT what I am saying to do.
I am saying to go back to the school without any body. Just you and your younger shadow and tell that young teenager that he or she did a great job of getting you into adulthood.
I firmly believe that our present will be solidly grounded if we can make peace with our past and shed the shame that comes with painful memories.
Let us be proud of who we are a d prouder still that we have come a long way baby!