Originally when I sat down to write about loss it was 7 PM and within one sentence it occurred to me that it was my ex-boyfriend’s birthday. I felt almost nothing, but of course, there was ever so slight my internal recoil, the soul flinch that came with remembering things about people you loved and missed but no longer knew. With this in mind, I wrote my column and went to bed because it ultimately, outside of the microscopic, hadn’t mattered all that much what was brought to mind when I spoke about loss. Yet when I went back to read my work I realized I had actually spoken about memory.
This experience is not exclusive to me, our memory holds things we may not particularly wish to hold on to, but keep anyway. Since July I have been working with the idea that this may never go away.
We are at our own mercy. We cannot choose what we forget nor try extra hard to remember. Which was why I struggled to understand what I wanted to say, but knew that there was something worth noting. Somewhere I understood that I had deceived myself into thinking that forgetting the people I loved who I had lost was the ultimate act of vengeance, but realized that part of me only wanted to forget because so often I was the one required to remember.
I had spent a great deal of my relationship retelling conversations that my perception was if I didn’t remember then we didn’t exist because I was the only one who remembered most of it. I was continuously burdened by my mind which misrepresented everyone it met but felt lonely without them. I left places repeating conversations over and over to get them right. When we broke up the only remedy seemed to be redirecting my urgency to letting my relationship finally vanish. By later acknowledging my fixation on forgetting I felt required to heal that which I wanted gone.
Memory is tricky like that, we are keen to believe that moving on is an act of forgetting, but it's really an art in remembrance. Nevertheless, it hurts, accepting that we may always remember the birthdays we no longer celebrate.
I had conflated my interest in memory to be an interest in writing about loss because to me they were the same thing. I was led to believe that our greatest feat. was that first moment of forget, but now I’m not so sure. The truth is I don’t know if we really do want to forget and I’m not sure if we ever will. Beyond our romantic relationships, memory is fragile and very dear. It is unreliable and entirely our own and our stories are dependent on our understanding of how they happened. It seems accepting that the willpower of wanting something gone won't bring peace and therefore we can only live without judgment for our own storytelling.
Now I perform what I call the continuous act of losing. It is the memories we don’t have on hand, the things we forget but given a moment remember. Sometimes still I pinch my eyes close and after a couple of seconds remember my ex’s favorite color, or at 7 pm realize without glancing at the calendar it's his birthday. I am more focused on the feeling of remembering than the initial forget. It is a harder goal, but it is realistic. It is also gentle there.
“Isn't it kinda beautiful?” My therapist asked me when we spoke about never forgetting and for the moment, it wasn't, because I only understood my memory in relation to my own pain. As the recoil of remembering becomes smaller I am starting to see her point. With memory there is nowhere to go, you can only work with what you have. I know that still, it doesn’t feel that beautiful, there are some memories which fill me with a kind of grief only time and reflection could possibly alleviate. Yet I see there in the distant future the allure where I remember a story where an old friend waits for me.
I desired to sorta make a mess of things and share a little bit of anything with a 2020 yearbook (since I realized halfway through the month this is the last you’ll hear from me until 2021)
Song Rec: When I get my Hands on You by The New Basement Tapes. My apple music (hold your boos I know people generally prefer Spotify), 2020 playlist listed this song at the top of my plays this year. One of my best friends introduced it to me at the end of 2019 and I coasted on it all year long.
Favorite photo subject: My room. I decorated the hell out of it and made it my own. Like any proud mom, I took plenty of photos.
Wise words from the homework gallery: Fall semester of my senior year brought romantic poetry, progressive commercials, Q&A’s, and Isobars. Yet I’ve found some comfort in the daily tasks.
The Ruined Cottage By William Wordsworth
Most frequent tarot card pull: Seven of pentacles
Words that cycled through my head all year and got me to the end:
“Write a letter to someone. Tell them that this is not a tragedy. The rest of me went home to the universe. There is a rumor that I vroomed out of town on a red maraschino cherry with a wagging tail.” Little Weirds by Jenny Slate.
Spencer Tweedy The Art of Waiting
Packing my Libary by Alberto Manguel
"Sometimes I really wish I knew what to say. But what I wish even more than that is to know what I wanted you to say. Whether that be sorry, or I loved you, or even I love you still. Yet none of those bring me the closure I want, which is perhaps the closure of never meeting you at all. But of course, that would be worse. Who would I be? Not myself." November 30th, 2020 6:16 PM
“I’ve come to a point that my heart—my love even is imperceptible it’s too big. I can’t focus on it all, I need more distance from it, which I may never get.” November 29th, 5:59 PM
I’m stealing this from the Q&A I did with my spiritual mother Sharon.
“Who am I when I’m alone in my house because I can’t go outside?”
Less planning this time around probably because things were changing too much to plan anything at all! Fine by me.
Here is the mood board for December and I have a sneaky suspicion I forgot to turn my Pinterest board off private so you didn’t get to see the November mood board. Alas, this is public now.
Final words
Last month we talked about change, this month we talked about memory and in all my remembering I forgot that the next time we see each other it will be a new year. New Year’s Eve is my favorite holiday because of the formality it requires in us to look back. I forgot that 2020 had to end. It seemed to me it couldn’t stop with its current trajectory, that its inertia would never meet its match. Yet remembering is as much of change as anything and while we coast through December remembering ourselves from a year ago to now we may just be what stops this year in its tracks. Honestly, I miss this year, which faded into its own obscure nothingness, while simultaneously securing its infamy. In an elegy of sorts to 2020, I might write about intimacy which I felt we lost, but I might also add the new closeness we find in being apart. That can’t replace the year we had which kept us from one another, but I think our continued survival is worth noting. A week after the world shut down it was my birthday and I thought I was going to be sad. Instead, we drove. On the Williamsburg bridge, we played at full volume, windows down, My Way by Frank Sinatra in the uncommon warmth of mid-march. Then after dinner a surprise 12 person zoom party waited anxiously for us. Friends were sat staring at each other despite not really knowing one another. After I wrote down that’s love. This here is the end. Of both the newsletter and the year, but I think before this is over you should take a deep breath and remember that you have changed too. (Do so now I’ll wait for you.) I won’t make you love 2020 because I can’t say I do, but I hope on New Year’s Eve you find something to love of what you’ve become, and when Frank Sinatra launches into the atmosphere of a new year, setting its velocity— you’ll think that’s love.
That’s all this month! If you enjoyed the little conversation we had let me know! Save +share your favorite parts and tag @chloeinletters
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My Goodreads where I sometimes write reviews but keep updated is right here where more of my library is contained as far as books go.
My website is where you can check out my portfolio and contact me
My email, if you want to cut to the chase, is letterstochloew@gmail.com where you can let me know what you think or ask me a question about what you saw here!
Here’s to another month, our memories, and Starbucks Fridays.
Love always
Chloé