I’m afraid of wearing out memories.

where do socks go anyway

I’m afraid of wearing out memories.

My McDonald’s socks, bought by my date at a McDonald’s in Cape Town at 4am, after convincing her I was a safe person to visit by answering her deeply inquisitive question “are you going to murder me?” with “no,” is the only doorway I have to the memory of a deeply cherished night, sleeping under the stars, in view of a mountain, fire, and ocean. That memory itself is linked to a constellation of memories.

I’m afraid of wearing that sock out.

I read somewhere every time you recall a memory
it fractures somehow 💔
gets slightly more distorted and open to revision.

I’m terrified of not holding on to the past. Submitting to the present. What if the present sucks? Then I’ll just… be stuck in something that sucks.

I’ll cry. It’ll overwhelm me. I’ll need true, active, immediate reassurance and help.

I can’t remember the last time I’ve really needed that.

Friends comfort me, but it never feels, well, truly necessary. Even when I feel fear, it’s not “I” exactly who feels it. My body feels it, and I’m dimly aware it feels it, and I’m aware friends comforting me helps the body, but to feel true fear? Fear capable of wrecking you? I haven’t felt that in a while.

I have another memory now. Of being a very little boy, around 6. He was very scared, but he decided not to feel fear, because the adults around him didn’t really seem to know how to handle the situation, so at least if he kept his wits about him, things might go better.

They largely seemed to have, and I haven’t quite left that state since.

It’s nice, living in this glass wall of the past. I’m insulated, somehow, it feels, from the present moment. I’m living in this castle of a story of myself; it’s robust. To feel directly is — ow, scary, intense — mortal. But there’s an immortality to where I am. That little scared hiding vantage point, just behind the present.

I’ve hidden in that tower for a looong time.

How do I hold on to the past, when every time I remember that night, I remember a dozen more nights, that I wasn’t even aware I’d forgotten about (or perhaps, aware that remembered?). Each memory unlocks other memories; you’d think this reassuring, but this is just terrifying; it reminds me of the score more memories I haven’t indexed, no systematic path to. What good is a memory if I’ve forgotten I have it?

I tried to live in that systematic path between memories, but it is a small, small place to live on.

I used to worry about wearing socks out. Now I worry about not wearing them out enough before they reach their end-of-life. I try to enjoy them as much as I can, before they inevitably get lost, get ignored for more, make sure I’ve squeezed every use.

No more saving my favourite socks for special occasion. I make sure no special use goes unused, but using them all now. The same with memories. I may as well revel in them now! Today! When I remember them and still care.

I’m sleeping besides a loved one. I cherish this night. Previously, I would have tried to freeze it. I didn’t know how to remove all the juice. Now I just try to drink it all. Relish it in this very moment every time the moment occurs to me again to relish. I wear the sock to its fullest uses.

Tomorrow will have more socks.