I admit that some movies, some scenes, some songs, some moments, still rub me the wrong way. In gen­eral this is a good thing: the harder it is to let go of some­thing, the bet­ter the expe­ri­ence it was. I’m also given hope in under­stand­ing that these things will pass, as all things pass, and every­thing will be put in its right place. Fortunately, this is easy to accept because of the fact that I’ve already gone through a full cycle with oth­ers. Perhaps I’ve also become accus­tomed to some resid­ual emo­tions, kept alive by the mem­o­ries of the ori­gins of lessons learned.

But all of this still doesn’t detract from the fact that some things still rub me the wrong way, as if my skin was peeled and every con­jured sen­sa­tion was a salt water burn. I can feel that sound in my ears, feel the pris­matic danc­ing of light in my eyes, feel her say, “pris­matic”, explain­ing the colour of her hair.

It’s not even the per­son with which I share these expe­ri­ences that makes it impor­tant, it’s the expe­ri­ences them­selves, because they mean some­thing. A change in my life. A change that may have not have hap­pened otherwise.

And I real­ize that it’s not that I can’t let these mem­o­ries go, it’s that I choose not to.