Two-Part Reflection

Part 1: The Need for Memory

Memories are powerful. Have you ever thought about that? Memories are painful, comforting, confusing, revealing… Maybe I’m particularly aware of that this semester, as I seek to keep a long-distance relationship alive, and actively reliving memories is one of my main strategies to ensure that. A mere memory can make me laugh or grow somber in a moment. And memories are integral to my life. I mean, what would I do without them? If I had to spend a whole week of just living day-to-day, no looking back, I would feel lost, I think. (Just thinking about this reminds me of lots of applicable song lyrics for this topic, so certainly other people have reflected on this.)

Also, I learned in Psych class that memories are biased—we tend to “mis-remember” too. This is something I fear when I write things in my journal: will the written version faithfully reflect what happened and how I felt at the time? Then again, I also figure that journaling is preventing that inaccuracy: if I write down events soon after they occurred, when I read those entries again, I’ll be relying on decent evidence, not foggy memories with no record.

“Can it be that it was all so simple then

Or has time rewritten every line?”

 (... Okay, so I couldn't resist including lyrics of some sort.)

Maybe that’s why I’m so driven to journal: I need to remember, and I want it to be as true-to-life as possible. I read back on those entries and enjoy it. I write new ones and relate them back to the past, a web of present-past-future life-living-remembering. This semester especially, I believe I need to remember, for example, my boyfriend and all the fun things we did together, all the meaningful conversations we had and even his idiosyncratic mannerisms, to make myself feel that I’m still connected to him. (Hm… Is this how it works for someone grieving for a loved one? But that's a thought for another time.)

Part Two: The Living Souvenir

Now, I don’t believe I have ever been depressed, but I know that dwelling on the past has a way of making even the most positive person blue. Therefore, my goal in emphasizing memory is to be able to move forward, as an improved person, with an identity that integrates Past with The Now.

Ever since I returned to school after living in Spain, however, this has been quite difficult. There are still days when I feel very disconnected from my experience there and it makes me sad. Predicting that would happen, I wrote a lot in my journal and created a scrapbook from my photos. But after everything, it’s my memories that comfort me most. That, and knowing I live in the same body that I was living in while I was there. It’s kind of like wearing the clothes you wore during a Good Moment a second time before you wash them: you feel closer to that memory because you’re wearing the same thing. (Or am I the only person who thinks of that?) Only this idea takes it a step further: it’s my very skin and bones and hands and feet that were there, that hold those memories too. So seeing my feet and knowing they walked the street of Lisbon, knowing my hair got cut in Baoding: those are comforting, physical memories I get to keep forever.

So the culmination to all this dawned on me a few days ago:
I am a living souvenir.

I’ll explain the context: I had been lamenting to myself about how the various stages of my life feel very segregated. This even applies to the geographical places where I have lived: as they are physically distanced, they are also emotionally segregated in my mind. That is, I’ve been feeling lately that I haven’t applied what I learned in Spain and integrated it into my identity now. I want to be one Ellen, not Ellen-in-Spain, Ellen-at-home, Ellen-at-school, Ellen-as-a-freshman, or whatever.

So after class a few days ago, a good friend and I had a philosophical and reflective talk about people’s purposes in life. As we talked, I began to recall my experiences in Spain and apply some of those lessons to our conversation. Walking home after I left, I mentally reviewed our discussion and how easily I had applied Spain to Ellen-Today. You can guess that this pleased me a lot and I happily congratulated myself. Hooray for Integrated Identity!

But that's not all. That’s when this souvenir idea hit me: of all the things I miss from Spain (and from China, and from every other stage of my life, for that matter) that I’ll never get back or experience again, I realized that the one lasting “souvenir” I get to keep is me. (Does that make any sense?) My matured, changed identity is the best “gift” I could have ever brought back. That’s when I started to get really excited. In that moment, it was like I had just received a long overdue package with a note from myself (or maybe from God?), sent while in Spain:

Dear Ellen,

Greetings from Spain! So you know, living in the States again, you are going to experience reverse culture shock and some difficulty re-forming your identity. But here’s the good news: You have just received your hard-earned reward for all that difficulty: the new and improved You! Among the slew of great improvements to an already beautiful Identity, You are now more adapted to handle future intercultural experiences, to travel on your own, to rely on God in times of loneliness, as well as so much more. So take this souvenir and use it every day, exploring all of its facets, and enjoy your God-given life more abundantly, starting Today!

Yeah. Maybe all of this sounds lame to you, but I feel so much better after that realization. I guess this means I can finally check something off my list of Challenges to Overcome: To successfully adjust after reverse culture shock. Check. What a good feeling.
Thanks for that, God.

Thoughtfully yours, I remain,

Ellen P.