When it is only you that holds onto a particular memory or set of memories from a given time in your life, you feel as though perhaps they could be no more than a figment of your imagination. Especially if those with whom you shared the time with and shared those memories with have now ceased to feature in your life and also have ceased to hold onto those memories. It is as if the past as you know it never happened and you only imagined it. As time erodes the details of those memories you hold so dear, that remind you of where you came from and what you knew and learnt, that defines and shapes your identity, doubts about what really happened creep into your consciousness at an alarming rate abd you begin to question if you ever lived the life you thought you did, if you ever went through those experiences, if you ever had the relationships you thought you had, if you ever felt the things you think you felt, if you are who you think you are ...
Who are you?
If everyone or at least the ones with whom you shared the most intimate and vulnerable parts of yourself now cease to acknowledge your existence or partake in being a part of your identity, if they appear to be completely indifferent to your life or death, if they are indifferent to your existence, how then can one not feel that one's sense of oneself and one's past might have been the fruit borne of an overactive imagination? A second life that you thought you lived, but perhaps never really did. There is no proof that you did. Only your memories. Do you believe what you remember or is it only what you think you remember? How do you believe such intangible things as thoughts? If no one else knows you exist and those who ought to know appear to have disappeared off the face of the earth then you have no way of remembering who you were ...
Then how do you move on to become who you will be when you don't even know who you are, when you have all the missing pieces forming gaping holes you cannot seem to patch up or ignore without the apparitions rising in your dreams, your restless sleep. How do you become whole when you never were to start with? How do you secure the door to your heart when you gave the key away to someone who has thrown it into the gutter?
If you didn't have the remaining pieces then perhaps you could and would have to start over from scratch but because you have pieces of yourself you know there are bits missing and how then do you cast away the past?
Perhaps we only need pieces of ourselves to survive but then again perhaps we need to find what's missing in order to live.
To have no history is to be adrift in the vast ocean of anonymity. To have no memory - and I refer to shared memories - could well mean you have no identity. Personal memories and thoughts if not remembered, are as good as non-existent. Shared memories anchor you to a social network, a community. They are like invisible bonds that persist when the details cease to exist. You may not remember exactly what you did with another but you feel a closeness from having shared experiences, shared your time, shared yourself. When these bonds are broken or thrown out, discarded and forgotten, the one who still holds on the other side and depends on the bonds to build their sense of self, now becomes like a building with its foundations ripped out.
Who are you? Where do you come from? Is there anyone out there? Who knows you? Who really knows you? I think therefore I am. I remember and am remembered therefore I exist. There is no good in being without existing in a wider context. No man is an island. Nor woman, boy or girl.
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