Love and Memory

I love writing. I love writing memoir. Which is great because I am currently working on a project about my past relationships, in a crazy attempt to find patterns and meaning. I'm writing to find out what I think, as Patricia Hampl once wrote--both what I think of the guys I have dated and what those relationships were really about, as well as what I think of myself, my often romantic notions of love, and, the ultimate question: What does it all mean?

For example, I'm the girl who never had a "type," so I'm hoping that through this process, I will discover what makes me fall in love (or lust) and why I have chosen or been selected by the boys/men I've had relationships with, from kindergarten (when my first marriage took place) to today.

But the thing about dredging up old memories and emotions is that it puts me in a weird fog where I become immersed in whatever moment of time I am writing about. If I write about a frat party, I once again become that carefree sorority girl who actually enjoyed the taste of Jungle Juice, in a way reverting to that past self for a handful of hours, or even days.

Because last semester I basically wrote about getting wasted, guys who disappointed me in bed, and, in contrast, my prowess at certain bedroom activities, this semester I decided I would focus solely on the memories that were not so fun to reenter. For example, I am currently writing about how my ex-boyfriend cheated on me four days after I moved to New York City for grad school. Oddly, the memory is more painful than the experience because I am finally seeing what it all meant.

In memoir writing, there are two characters--the you who experienced the moment you are writing about and the you who is writing about it. In this case, when I recount the night that my boyfriend at the time instantly changed from the love of my life to a guy I could never marry, I can't help but feel empathetic for my younger self. Not in a pitying way, but because I see her as a girl who didn't have choices. She (me) was in a new city, scared of further change, and pretty much trapped. From there, she (me) thought that if she tried really hard, she could erase the memory entirely, focusing not on how she really felt about the infidelity, but how she could find a way to get her boyfriend to propose marriage. My rationale at the time was that if I could get my boyfriend to marry me, the cheating didn't matter. After all, if he wanted to spend his whole life with just me, he must really love me.

For the past few days, I've felt the burden of this memory clinging to me. All the "if onlys" that cannot be changed. But in a way, I also feel a little better about this moment. By writing about what happened to me, to my relationship, injecting it with new meaning from my perspective now (over two years since it occurred), I can see my growth and maturation from that point in time. The memory still stings, but the writing can soothe.