Tag: memory

Memories

Bailey Gunn1 Comment

Memories are a slippery thing. Your first kiss. Your first broken bone. Your first plane ride. And all your lasts.

Everything you know, everything you are is made up of memories. Pictures and movies in your head that tell you how to act, how to feel from past experiences to shape new ones.

Well, I’m here to remind you that your memories are biased and warped by your emotions. What you remember can be totally different from what the next person experiencing the same thing recalls.

And that’s totally okay. Because you are you because of your memories. From people who claim that they remember being born to people who can’t remember the last 5 minutes, it is the very stuff that makes you who you are.

So, remember who you are by invoking the right of memory. And never stop making memories with those you love.

Love,

Bailey

Repeating Myself

Bailey GunnLeave a comment

Do you ever feel like you’re repeating yourself?

I do. All the time. Especially on this blog. I’m so scared I’ll write the same blog post twice, make the same joke again, spout the same wisdom.

Hey, in 500 posts, you can’t help but repeat yourself once in awhile, right?

But at the same time, I don’t worry about it. Because it just means my brain is running down the same path, ready to embrace and understand something in a new light. It’s like reading a book more than once; you get something different every time you read it. You just have to think that you’re in the same place for a different reason. That you’re there to learn something else that you passed by once before.

So, forgive me, if I repeat myself. My only desire is to beat you over the head with a topic until it gets through your thick skull.

Or I’ve completely forgotten that I’ve done it before. Either or.

Love,

Bailey

Writing Dail(e)y

Bailey GunnLeave a comment

Do you know why I started this blog?

That’s a trick question, by the way. Because I’m not even really sure why I started it. I mean, I knew I wanted to write more. And since I had the misfortune to not have a name that rhymed with something like “monthly” or “annually,” I suddenly found myself writing “daily” or “dailey,” as I like to say. Now that I have been blogging quite regularly, I’ve amassed a lot of posts, and of course, I’m proud of them.

But I can’t help but realize how ephemeral it all is.

For example, the entire structure of this blog is that I write something daily. So, after 24 hours is up, that particular post goes on to live the rest of its sad life in an archive. No more interaction or friendly banter in the comments. Heck, even I forget about what I wrote.

And don’t get me started on the idea of a blog itself. What happens in about 5 years when blogging is obsolete and goes the way of most technological formats? Will I have to update my blog on a hologram soon? Will I have to print my blogs out and put them in photo albums for my kids so that I can reminisce about the good old days when you actually had to fly to different places in planes rather than teleport there? Will I suddenly be claiming that I had to walk to school, which was up a hill, both ways?

Of course, these are all my thoughts when I’m feeling a little overwhelmed. Which is about every night around 10 PM, when I’m scratching my head, trying to think of something to fill the page with and only coming up with goose egg.

And at the same time that I finally get some inspiration is when I realize how completely magical this blog can be. I’m interacting with complete strangers (and mostly my mom) where once a day we both see eye to eye about something. That’s what hitting the “like” button does. It sends a message to me that essentially says, Yes, Bailey. You’ve hit a nerve in the human condition, and I need to recognize that. And for me? There’s no better compliment for what I do.

In the end, this blog doesn’t need to represent my legacy. It simply needs to connect me with one person in one 24-hour period to be successful.

Because our lives are not years, months, weeks, or even days, added altogether. They are moments and memories subtracted out and strung along. And while this blog may not be around for me to flip through like an old photo album someday, it still helps me to remember my moments in vivid (and sometimes nauseating) detail right now. And so a day or an experience is etched in my mind purely through the act of writing about it. And those tiny, precious moments will be my legacy someday.

I can’t thank you all enough for being a part of it.

The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves

Bailey GunnLeave a comment

Did you laugh at that title? It’s funny, right? The thought that beatings could actually improve your outlook on life seems ridiculous.

Well, if it’s so funny, why do we do it to ourselves?

Let’s see if you recognize the following situation:

You’re in a rush. You are out the door before you realize that you don’t have your keys. You run back into the house to grab them. They’re right by the door, where you left them. You run out through the door back to your car. You’re driving, driving, driving. You are minutes away from your place of work when you realize that you have forgotten your lunch at home. All of that sandwichy deliciousness is left to become warm on the kitchen counter. It is not likely that it will be any good come dinnertime, and it certainly isn’t doing you any good being left at home.

So, what is your first reaction to the above scenario? What if that were you, leaving your lunch, in this situation? Would you say, oh, fiddlesticks! I will just have to eat out today or Well, I guess I will just have to make leftovers for dinner tonight–leftovers from lunch! And then you giggle and titter behind your hand like a schoolgirl.

Or…do you do what I do: #@$%* I FORGOT MY LUNCH. I AM AN IDIOT. I AM THE WORLD’S WORST, AND I DESERVE TO STARVE FOR THIS.

Yeah. There’s basically two people in this world, as you can see. But unfortunately, if you are the second person, you’re probably not getting the results you want from yourself. Why’s that, you wonder? Why, after the first hundred times that you forgot your lunch at home, do you think that yelling at yourself is going to help you remember? Emotional stress = increased memory, perhaps?

Disregarding any pseudo-scientific explanation your brain tells itself, the answer is it’s just not. The most it is going to do is make you feel bad (and most likely hungry).

And there are millions of people who do this. Who don’t think they’re good enough, who think they need to be perfect, who are yelling at themselves right now.

But the thing that they don’t tell you about lies is that if you say them often enough, and loud enough, they become the truth. You become the stupid idiot who deserves to starve for whatever small crime you “committed” against the world when you tell yourself it is true, even when it is not.

The short and long of it is that you shouldn’t beat yourself up so much. The world will only be too happy to do that for you, if you let it. Don’t think you are saving yourself by beating everyone else to the (mental) punch.