The Spaces in Between

 

“… So don’t forget any of it. Remember it all and overcome it. If you don’t overcome it, you’ll always be the kid whose soul never grows.” – The Boy who Fed on Nightmares by Moon-Yung

 

Have you ever felt that you have lost chunks of memories or pieces of your life? Gaps in a sequence that doesn’t add up? As if your system has simply deleted those memories, wiped them off your brain. You remember the feelings, the sting of pain or rage or breaking grief… but not what exactly happened. Flashes of colours, one or two words, sensations of heat or numbing cold, choking dust, taste of salty water… but nothing else. If you want to recall them, your mind does tricks. She weaves those pieces together, stitches the gaps with imagination, intuition and emotions and makes you feel contented with the stitched-up memories. Obviously, the contentment doesn’t last long.

It happens to me often - with the memories I want to forget. My head does the wiping off for me. That should work, shouldn’t it? I mean, if I don’t remember hurtful memories, I shouldn’t hurt anymore. That is the way it works, or should work. Somehow, the pain doesn’t cease. No matter what you choose to do with the memories, it simply cannot wipe off the remembrance of the feelings. You remember all of it. You remember the feelings of helplessness, the outbursts of rage and the floodgates of pain opening. You live through them again and again.

Every day you wake up on the mounds of the night gone by. You remember how you fought and made through the last day. You remember nothing is same today. Today is yet another day to be fought and made through. And you need to forget and forgive all over once more to get up from bed and get on with life. Once more you have to convince yourself of all the reasons to live for. Once more…

With that comes the realization like a shiver through your spine, that forgiving and forgetting, hard as it is, is not a one-time experience either. Every day, you have to wake up and do it all over again. You cannot forget the scars, nor can you remember how you forgave. What is forgiveness, after all? Doesn’t the question baffle you? What do you exactly mean when you say, “I forgive you”? Does it mean you are letting go of all that had scarred and marred you and that you’re moving on? Can uttering these three words make you move on from the pain and burden of a lifetime? For me, it doesn’t. I have said these words a million times but to be truthful, I haven’t moved on. That is, I haven’t been able to forgive.

I can’t let go. I can’t move on. I guess that is what happens when all you remember are the feelings and not what happened. What you remember doesn’t hurt as much as what you don’t. Deep down, you cannot get over the horror or shock that forced your mind to wipe those memories. Those deleted spaces robbed you of a part that made you complete. Your consciousness gropes for the tattered remains of what you were and at the same time, tries to make peace with what you are. That makes you feel that void more and more. You can hear the sigh of that emptiness howling through your soul. You can sense its desperation to be complete. You try to find your peace in human beings, in animals, in flowers and in hobbies but nothing makes you feel okay. You don’t understand what’s going on. Your soul cries in hopeless agony but it can make nothing of the blankness tugging at your insides.

Sometimes I feel this void is all about the lost pieces. 

Sometimes I wish I remembered. All of it. No matter how scary it was. Because, to hold on to those bottled-up emotions is a hell lot scarier.

What does healing mean, after all? What does it encompass?

Maybe. all we need to do is to remember. Remember each and every moment. Confront the pain, the fear, the horror of it all and find a way of letting it out. For some, poetry is a way, for some, painting or handicraft does it. You could stand in the rain, out in the open and scream out loud. Maybe vent out to those who wronged you. Write a letter. Record your voice. Let your heart out.

Then, when the rage subsides, the pain fades, find a ‘room of your own’, a space to heal, a space to find it in you again to live, laugh and love. You might have forgotten in the craze, but once upon a time you knew how to do that. All you need to do is to remember.

And have faith.

Have faith that oneday, when this madness is all over, we will all sit in a never-ending lush field with the skies kissing the horizon. The fresh smell of wet earth will drift in the air. Our eyes will close in the contentment of feeling whole again.

To find the freedom to live again, laugh again and love again… oh, I can fight a thousand wars for that! Can’t you?