Memory Bubbles

Lindsey often gets frustrated with how sentimental I get, and she is right to do so. I am ridiculous. In most memorable situations I drag it out, and I am quick to be nostalgic about something that is barely in my past. Much of this is because I have trouble processing change and letting go, some of it is a futile attempt to force an appreciation of the moment beyond what being blind to its impermanence allows, but later in my life it was often me trying to create a memory bubble with mixed degrees of success. 

Most of my life, I didn't really conceptualize memory bubbles. I had one, a very distinct one actually, of a day when I was in second grade at the Country Day school in Alexandria, LA. On this day I sat on a piece of the playground equipment and realized that one day a future version of me would look back on that day and have a completely different life. I realized that my routine of that age of schools and recess and teachers wasn't permanent and that eventually high school me or adult me or old me would look back and find the concerns of that moment foreign and that I would wish for the simplicity of that old elementary playground. This rare moment of perspective created my first time bubble, an event that basically created a snapshot of a mindset in time and stored it away. Any time I reflected on the event and that mindset I could almost feel the playground equipment under me again, I could see the big grass bushes that bordered the play area of the school. But I thought it was a one off, a non-reproducible event as I didn't have any others like it. 

But I knew I wasn't alone in experiencing memories this way, as my grandfather in his old age would talk about being alone and reliving memories in his life. Towards the end he was living more for the memories than future moments, and I could relate to how he wanted to reach back into the best and most productive parts of his life and live then instead of where he was in life when he was old and alone. In fact some of his bubbles he could describe so vividly I almost could live in them too, like certain days after the war or the time he played with dirt solders under his childhood home. But I didn't think it was something you could control, I thought it was just something that happened. 

That changed for me in 2015, or really at the end of 2014. Coming into 2015 I was slapped in the face with a new memory bubble from my past I didn't know I had. I remembered the day we went to go see Back to The Future 2 in the theater as pointed out on another post on this blog. I remember how reflective the future part of the movie made me, and how it made me imagine how 30-something year old me (aka same age as future Marty in the movie) would be. In 2015 I was able to amazingly reach back into this mindset, and the whole year I would go in and out of that old bubble as needed to engage with a childhood mindset I thought lost but was almost completely intact stored away. In fact this bubble had other bubbles tied to it, and suddenly I had a library of childhood reflections to reach back into. 

On the actual Back to the Future day as talked about in the movie I decided I was going to create a new memory bubble. On that day the sense of perspective that elementary version of me came back in full, and realized that 2015 me with my three dogs still alive and my health and my full mental capacities would be something I would want to look back on for years or decades from that day. I took some selfies with the dogs that I remember vividly taking, and I put in real effort that day to stay above my usual routine of social media and daily concerns to try and create a memory bubble of a once in a lifetime event. It was a success, which inspired me to try more. 

I created a bubble of what it was like to mine Ethereum in 2016, and the vivid memories of how hot the room was can actually warm me up on days I am cold. I created another bubble when Lindsey went to Sante Fe in 2017 of me and Luna riding around town looking for parks. I made another at one of those parks when Finn was little trying to get him to walk, another when we walked around the old neighborhood one last time with Luna in tow, and another walking Luna around the lower part of the neighborhood when it was all sunflowers instead of houses as noted on this blog. It didn't always work, the mindset didn't always stick. Sometimes trying to force a bubble would make it impossible, other times the distractions of my life wouldn't pause enough to allow clarity to have the buddle be created. But I now mostly know the formula, and if I have he chance to plan I can usually create a memory bubble if life will give me the space to do it. 

My last attempt was this weekend. Luna is sick and has lost a bunch of weight, and the lack of answers made me realize I needed to move if I was going to create a bubble of what she like was at the end- something I never had with Xena. I carved out the space for Lindsey to watch Finn so I could take Luna on one last walk me and her, and as soon as we left the door I connected to an old memory bubble of a day I went on that same walk while Lindsey was pregnant and thought "one day it will be a special privilege to get the time to take Luna for a walk just us" which of course wasn't the case before Finn was born. I knew connecting to old bubbles was the way to ensure the life of new ones, and as we left the house I started to soak it up. 

We walked on a piece of pavement that construction had cut off from the rest, but used to be part of the path when we first moved to the house. On this chunk of sidewalk I hugged her and cried, and told her how much I appreciated everything she did for me and how much I loved her. I made sure to soak up the surroundings, and even extended the walk a little to give me time to process that moment. I did everything I could to make that moment a bubble, but I never know until I have moved on in my mindset. All I can do is hope I captured a good memory of the dog, even though really Luna will always be remembered best for her hugs. I just had to take what I could get. 

At the very end of Buddy's life one of the last real connections I had with him was when I talked about Finn and being a new parent. In one of these conversations he relayed to me that he strongest and favorite time bubble (he just called it a memory) was a time when my dad was in a high chair being fed. The perspective that my father who raised me was once the same as Finn in this man's life, and that after 90+ years that was the memory he cherished the most had a deep effect on me. The night I got home from his funeral I was feeding Finn in his high chair he was just exploding with joy, constantly doing the gurgle noise at me that had defined our short relationship as loud as he could. He was so happy to see me, and the connection of that moment and that time bubble to the Buddy's favorite bubble gave me a sense of perspective so overwhelming I couldn't stop crying. Eventually a surprised Finn (why was dad crying?) stopped the excitement explosion and we got back into a routine. But it created the time bubble I associate with both my grandfather and my young son, and I see it as the last gift Buddy ever gave me.