Roping in the New Year

Memory is a rope, a long thick braided cord of assurance. It’s there for you to hold onto, to lean on when you need a reminder. It pulls you into recollections; the way his lips curled into a smile, how his hands felt interlocked in yours, or how much your vacant heart ached when he left. The rope never goes away, it’s shackled to your wrist and tugs every few minutes. Sometimes it’s welcomed; when you ’ re trying to remember which hand he had that scar on, you remember it was a bike accident, but was it his right or left?

It tugs the hardest when you need your composure, when your strength is required more than ever; how can you let it slip when you ’ re face to face with his mother, his same blue swirling in her eyes that had captivated you years ago. Your lip begins to bleed from holding back the tremors in your jaw, and the rope starts ripping the delicate skin on your hands. You worry, if you don’t keep a hold on that rope, it will be lost forever. If the memories aren’t shuffled through daily Will they cease to exist?

As the months pass, the rope gets shorter and shorter The capacity of your hippocampus starts to bottom out

You barter with your mind

Trying to give up passwords and family vacations to make room

You’d give up your 16th birthday, How it felt to drive for the first time or your first day of highschool, You’d give up every memory from before you met him

If it meant you’d never forget how his love engulfed you.

But what is life if it is lived in the past?

Where is the line drawn between keeping memories alive and permitting them to hold you back?

The opportunities you ’ ve missed in the last 9 months are irreplaceable

The chances at preparing your future fly by.

Suddenly you ’ re behind in school

Isolated from friends and family, You’ve spent the latter of the year watching videos of the two of you

Staring at pictures until your eyes well up, and you can no longer make out the image.

You’ve used up the majority of your year living in the past

Clinging desperately on that rope, now numb to the lacerations covering your hands.

The details grow fuzzy, His voice can no longer be recalled, His face is harder to conjure than ever before And you ’ re faced with a choice.

The calendar is about to reset

A new year is approaching, and you ’ re reminded that time is moving even if you aren’t.

You look back on your year,

It’s been spent dressing wounds and replaying scenes on a loop

All energy has been expended on holding onto that rope, you realize You stopped living the day he left. The choice is here, The rope has splintered into strands, Keep clinging, Or let go.