Remembering What's Important.

The past never catches up to the future because we are always having to live out our today...  and our future never pays much attention to our past unless it is trying to teach us a lesson...  the present is all anyone has...  nothing more and certainly nothing less...  we can remember all we want to remember but it will never make any difference as it will always be relived in memories and perhaps those memories will reflect what was important.

I do not remember much about my childhood except bits and pieces of fragments that may or may not be an accurate representation of what was experienced...  perhaps they are not even close at all...  and yet, they still lurk around my as if they were previous tomorrows.  My teenage years are a lot more vividly remembered especially my high school years but not my first 3 years of college or the 2 years I spent at that same college after 2 years in the military.  The chronology is rather accurate but the memories falter and all I can really see is that I attended and graduated...  and, received an honorable discharge from tje Navy.

My first marriage is also a blur even though it lasted more than 2 decades and provided me with a daughter whose life I will always cherish even if she no longer cherishes mine...  for one reason or another neither of which has been shared with me or any other as far as I can tell... although only her hairdresser knows for sure.

My second marriage is more readily available therefore my memories are probably more accurate and now that we have been together for over 25 years, I am not real sure what happened in our first decade together...  if was good or bad or simply indifferent...  although, one would suspect it would be better than not since we've stayed together almost 30 years...  almost half my lifetime...

So, what has actually been important in my life?

I could probably list them on the fingers of one hand with the other one tied behind my back...  but, all that is important is that we live another day.

Five years ago, I threw away all the books and notebooks that I had been collecting throughout my career, all of which I had either used or read and most of which had been given.  There were about 20 boxes of these books and I really did not know I had collected so much shit and the amount of space that it freed up was absolutely amazing.

But, more importantly my life did not fall apart once the last load was taken to the dump, so those damn books and notebooks must not have been that important.

About the only thing that I really consider important is all the writing I have done...  and yes, ever since high school, I have kept all of it...  but, if I were to go back and read some of my short stories, I would not even remember writing them or how I felt while doing so.  My poems are the same way.  I have written over 42,000 and NEVER ONCE have I looked back,. or reread, or revised any one of them...  if I did, the poems were instantly be changed from their original meaning...  even if the poem was not worth a damn.

So, I am not sure what's important in my life and what should be remembered.  My parents were important to me but each passing years causes them to pass farther and farther outside the perimeters of my memories...  and, I know this should not be so, but it is.

I am not sure if anything is really worth remembering except what might happen today.