Falling back

Falling back

on years of toil,

Falling back

Through tears that hurl

Themselves through, to the core

Bringing out emotions, to the fore -

Diving and sifting through

memories.

Sometimes I find flashbacks attacking me. Out of the blue, scenes from the past just haunt me for the longest moment. I finally shake them off and realise I had returned to the past through living the present. It may be nothing more than a moment that I can ignore and move on. Or there could have been a reason for it to bring me back to something that is linked to my present day.

I often wonder about this. What is it that makes a memory come to you without warning? I can understand when smells trigger memories, like the smell of freshly brewed coffee that brings back childhood memories of breakfast with the family. Or the smell of my mother's perfume that reminds me of those mornings as I was getting ready for school. But what about those memories that just conjure themselves out of their own volition. I may be sitting, busy working on something, minding my own business when suddenly it hits me. It stays and grows until I find myself back in that scene, living it and breathing it. Then suddenly I am out of it again, with no warning, just a feeling of familiarity and perhaps remnants that I realise were once misunderstood.

I had one of those days today. One where one flashback after another kept playing games with me. Different scenes from different parts of my life. Random pieces from different puzzles being thrown together into a box, if you will. Mental exhaustion was a certainty but a newly acquired perspective was another. I remembered and looked back and learnt new things, saw old people in  a new light. I understood.

This is what experience does to you. It makes you grow into a more well-rounded person. This is one of the reasons why memory is there. To put things away until a time when one is ready to understand that full meaning of it. I know that ten years from now I will look back on those same memories and see something I did not see today. 

It is a unacknowledged wisdom, I realise now, that it is good to fall back on your memories.