To Write or Not To Write?

That is the question plaguing me as I clean up the bedroom for the bizillionth time. The boxes, the bags, the memories of college, study abroad, even middle school. But especially the Peace Corps. It felt like a life-changing event at the time. It still feels like one now. But somehow for some unknown reason I don't really feel like writing about the Peace Corps. I don't know why. I even started a book about the Peace Corps...and sort of gave up before I got to the part about the Peace Corps. I do think there is still something there to write about. I mean, I have journals, notes, even notes on napkins all to illustrate...what? I have pictures, necklaces given to me from friends when I lived in Machala, and shirts that I wore when I was there.

But really what I am getting at here is the essence of memory. If we don't hold on to the past do we lose it? What happens to it? What if I want to write my book one day and I wish I had the artifacts? Those notes, those paper napkins from bars, those pictures that were taken of us at the time but now have a different meaning where we can see the bar stool in the background, or the menu and the table setting at Cafe Patecon. The people are still here with us (of course if the people were not still here with us the picture takes on a deifed quality, an inescapable essence where getting rid of it feels sacrilegious) but really, it becomes less about the people and more about the memory. The feelings, the emotions, the ability to go back in time that we don't want to lose. The fear that getting old really just means, getting unfamiliar, getting away from the essence, our own essence, whenever, wherever it was.

But what I try to remember and what does become more clear as I go through this process is that there only really is one true essence, the here and now. Yes, nostalgia, picture, places, people, paper napkin notes have their place, but if those become what we rely on, they are figments of our true self coming through, not our actually full-self in the moment. In other words, when deciding what to save and what to chuck, here is my adage to live by: I will have the right things to save just by feeling out what seems right to save. Ok, it sounds too fake to be true. But seriously, that helps me get through this organization process. I will have the right things. Maybe maybe maybe there will be something I miss someday, but those instances will likely be rare. Instead, I love the space I am opening in my life for new experiences, and new memories. So long farewell, old Peace Corps napkins. The memoir may have to go on without you some day...you'll be with us in spirit. And I, having thrown out my treasured napkins, like someone throwing out a napkin after a big meal, feel more full than ever.