Remember When

Remember When?

Remember when Life was fresh, sensations were new, and we were still seeing and feeling things for the first time? Do you remember life before defeat, before heartbreak, before loss? Remember when the sun seemed brighter and each new day more inviting... more ready and baiting, to be conquered? Do you remember the insatiable hunger for just "being alive"?

Remember the first kiss, the first beer, the first joint, and the way each one distinctly felt as it touched your lips, passed over your tongue, and became written into the fabric of your story and into your history... more between the lines than on the paper, colouring the memory with nuance, more than any written language can describe. Remember the full-body electrifying sensation, the first time you embodied the courage to reach out and touch their skin... And instead of pulling away, they smiled and touched back. Remember the first time you fell in love, and then fell out again, with breath trapped in your throat and heart clenched in your fist.

Remember the first time you snuck out, ran away, and stole your parent’s car. Remember the first time you swore to yourself that you were "Never coming back!". Remember the first time you had to help a friend cover their tracks? Remember the pacts and the oaths. Remember the secrets you swore to save. Remember the loyalties and allegiances. Remember the parts of ourselves, and each other that we swore we would never let die.

Remember parties by the lake and camping in the bed of a friend’s truck with six of your friends? Remember cheap beer, campfires, and illegal skinny dipping, while the car radio plays in the background. Remember the way we owned the darkness, in the cool breeze of summer nights? Remember how the world belonged to us... Remember!

Remember the boys, Remember the girls...Remember me, because I sure as hell remember you! Remember who we were to each other, how we defined each other... and how we made each other. Remember the road trips to nowhere, to anywhere... and to somewhere, sliding across the bench seat of your old dusty truck, my hand in yours, resting on your lap, on a back road to "It doesn't even matter, let's just go...!".

Remember the freedom to do what you want, be what you want, see what you want... Remember the freedom! It's not a question... I'm not asking! I want to provoke you and to stir you... I want to breathe life into a part of you, made long dormant... but not dead! The world wasn't so different then; only our eyes... and our hearts, only the way we've been taught to see it that has changed; only our degree of passiveness to being swayed and skewed little compromises at a time, hardly noticeable in the moment, but change us over time.

Have we been broken, blinded, forced into submission by the powers that we used to thrill in rebelling against? No... I don't think so! I think maybe we've just forgotten. The way we forget to look at the stars or forget to notice the changing of the seasons in the color of leaves...We've just forgotten what life meant to us, and how it felt to really live. We've forgotten the sensation of hot blood alive in our veins, pulsing for a purpose. We've forgotten the "awakening" feeling of having something to burn hot for, from within... and having something worth burning for, no matter the cost.

Somewhere, we allowed our sharpness to be dulled, our edges to be rounded out, and have slowly been numbed. The obstacles are all the same. It is only how we perceive and approach them that differs. Remember what living means to you and take the best of life! Don't forget the enlivening newness of experiences and sensations not yet found. and don't forget what it is to be hungry for something that matters to you. Time is the only thing that is truly uncertain. We can never get more, and we never have any idea, just how much of it we really have to spend.

Life is meant to be lived... Live all of it, live every day of it, live every sensation and every experience. Be ALIVE in yourself. We almost always remember our "firsts", but we don't know which experiences will be our lasts... Our last laugh, our last kiss, our last touch... the last time we hear someone's voice or see their eyes in the golden hour light.

Remember when we reminded each other, that "Just being here for it", was a worthwhile cause in itself!?

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AUTHORS NOTES: I wrote the first version of this piece, over twenty years ago. At that time, it was a piece mostly focused on preserving the sensation of youth, before having to "put childish things aside". It was written mostly for my own record at the time, but after an additional twenty years of life, and having experienced a few "lasts" in that time, I now recognize the value in remembering the lasts as well... and how they give a greater depth of value to experiences. The simple fact that beautiful and painful things, all have an equally inevitable end... is what gives any meaning to our human experiences. After sitting on this short piece for twenty years and finally deciding to share it, I really wanted to recreate it in a way that gives weight to the end of things, as well as the beginning.

I also made certain adaptations to specific words used in the original version, to be more inclusive, and in line with the evolution of social developments in the last twenty years, however, I also wanted to maintain the "vintage" of the piece and the literary integrity of being spoken through my own voice and experiences, so I only made these changes in areas where it would not change the personal tone or perspective of my own memories and telling of the story. I hope readers who find these subjects to be of a personally sensitive nature, can appreciate the balance I was trying to achieve.