Memories

I read a quote the other day which stated, “Memories last forever.” I assumed it was true, in a sense. Our most important days of our past will stay with us forever. At this moment I recall almost all of the funniest or most memorable experiences of my past, ever since the beginning of elementary school. Yet, I also thought. If memories last forever, then how do our relationships with those people we shared the memories do not last? It has only been about two years since my middle school graduation, and more than 75% of my closest friends were districted to other schools. Middle school was truly amazing, although I know it’s the high school years I’ll really remember. But as of now, as a sophomore in high school, I look back at my middle school years like a college student looks back at his/ her high school years. I remember so clearly all the laughs we had, and the tragedies that spurned hours of crying. I truly look back on those years with a smile on my face, but it turns to a frown when I think of where I am right now. I have not even contacted my closest friends since maybe last summer; many others not even since graduation two summers ago. The even more sorrowful concept is that I do not even feel guilty or upset towards this. I rarely think of those friends, even though no one else will ever be able to replace the spaces they held in my past. This also applies to the future now. Once I graduate high school, and even college and begin living on my own, I know I will not be thinking and wishing I was with my high school friends again. I’ll be so busy living my own life and going through my new daily routines, I won’t even have the chance to visit my parents often, or give calls everyday. Our parents leave the strongest memories. The people who brought us into this world, and have been in it for every day of our young lives, are the people who shelter us, teach us, scold us, and support us. Without my parents, I would have nothing, and be nothing now, and in the future. Yet, these memories will last, and I will always be thankful, but I will never have the same kind of relationship with them as I once did. I look at my parents right now and their relationship with my grandparents. My mother hasn’t seen her parents in almost 5 years, and even my father’s parents who live only 20 minutes away, have not seen our faces in several months. I do not know if I will live here in the future, or in California, or if my parents will move away to Florida, but either way the relationship I have now with them will never be the same. It’s true that memories never fade, but memories are just that, memories. Memories don’t have any power although they will forever be etched into our minds.