I am surrounded by the ghosts of relationships past. They take the form of old letters, flowers, receipts, you name it. Any scrap of evidence that I meant something to someone or that they meant something to me is saved as a reminder of meaning in an otherwise dull abyss of life.
They are also memento mori, or a "reminder to die". Essentially, a reminder that nothing lasts forever. It is the cycle of life, nurturing an environment for the growth of something even better. Something new. It's why I think of every relationship and experience as either a blessing or lesson, and why I regret neither. Of course, that isn't to say the end of something isn’t painful. (several of my playlists will prove that it is) It's always sad to lose a friend, but it leaves space to make another (and potentially better) one. But when something dies, does it truly ever leave us? Or are we living with its ghost forever?
Since each experience teaches you something, and those lessons stick with you, I’d say so. Even if you don’t keep the physical reminders tucked away neatly in a box under your bed, you carry the rest with you everyday.
“God knows I am the girl I am because of you” (2:28)
‘stranger’ by Olivia Rodrigo
Still, I enjoy the sentiment of the occasional physical reminder. So once in a while, I open that box and relive the best and worst moments of my life, everything that has made me who I am today. In these fragments of love and loss, I connect with past versions of myself.
Other times, I’ll travel even further back than my tiny shoe box allows, to my parents' large mahogany box lying at the foot of their bed. During those times, physical reminders seem to offer more than just internal ones. They serve as mementos of moments other than the ones I have lived through, but ones that still hold importance to my life. I suppose that's why people have family heirlooms.
Sometimes I miss the person I used to be, the one who felt these boxed items were important enough to save. But then I know in a few years, I’ll be looking over an even fuller box, thinking the same thing about my present self. That is what makes these keepsakes memento mori, gentle reminders of life’s fleeting nature. They’re ghosts that whisper gentle reminders of everything that has changed and the changes that are yet to come.
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Beautiful! 🌟 “memento mori” a needed reminder for all the yearning I do of old memories