I think we are well advisedto keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be whether we findthem attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced andsurprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m. of a bad nightand demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who isgoing to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought wecould never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget whatwe whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have alreadylost touch with a couple of people I used to be;

I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door at 4 a.m . of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be;

Joan Didion • On Keeping a Notebook - Joan Didion

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All I was likely to discover at this point wasn’t just how distant were the paths we’d taken, it was the measure of loss that was going to strike me—a loss I didn’t mind thinking about in abstract terms but which would hurt when stared at in the face, the way nostalgia hurts long after we’ve stopped thinking of things we’ve lost and may never have

André Aciman • Call Me by Your Name

since we live in the heads of those who remember us, we lose control of our lives and become who they want us to be.

David Eagleman • Sum (Enhanced Edition): Tales from the Afterlives

“We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget loves and betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. Keeping a notebook keeps alive some illusion of who we used to be, allowing us to maintain continuity with a self we’ve already outgrown.”

-Joan Didion (from “On Keeping a Notebo

Also, we naturally tend to superimpose our present selves onto who we were before, and that can prevent us from recalling stuff that doesn’t shore up our current identities.

Mary Karr • The Art of Memoir

Friends, especially lifelong friends, are keepers of our stories, bearing witness to who we’ve been all along.

And if friends are the keepers of our stories, but there is no single friend who’s been present for each chapter—no one person to help you recall the location of that kiosk, the smell of Nürnberger sausages on a winter morning, or the poth... See more

Ochuko Akpovbovbo • october reading recap 📚

Only the very young and the very old may recount their dreams at breakfast, dwell upon self, interrupt with memories of beach picnics and favorite Liberty lawn dresses and the rainbow trout in a creek near Colorado Springs. The rest of us are expected, rightly, to affect absorption in other people’s favorite dresses, other people’s trout.