Today I look out my window at snow covered mountains, only five kilometres away. They are stunningly beautiful. I can't say that's only because they have snow on them, although that is certainly part of it.
It is because it reminds me of a place in the past that I have been before. Perhaps it wasn't even significant. However, it is just that: significant. Everything is, in my opinion.
These snowing mountains drive me back to elementary school when I was just learning to ski at Manning Park. Just seeing snow-covered mountains this close reminds me of it, every little thing: the smell, the temperature of the air, how tired I was, who I was with. This drives me to continue.
Although it seems strange, I try to recreate my past in a better way than I already remember it. Skiing at Manning Park Resort gives me blasts from the past like nothing else, because I've spent every winter of my life there since I could start remembering winter. The odd thing is that it doesn't remind me of only that particular place.
In 2012, I biked around Stanley Park and False Creek with my then girlfriend. From that point on, I do not only remember being on a date with there when I bike around the park, I remember everything about the relationship (including why I'm glad that it's over). I'm going somewhere with this, I promise.
My past gives me something to strive for, something to reexperience or perhaps replace. I feel like my head is a computer program, and running the same scripts replaces the old iteration of them. I want to go back to Kauai to replace the memories that are slightly flawed and the problems that were going on in my life at the time. Yes, I wish to turn my back on the past, but I want to hold onto certain components of it.
I have yet to meet someone who is attempting the same thing. I went on a trip with my best friend in July to Oregon, partially because Oregon is beautiful, but also because last time I had travelled to Oregon, I had either been eleven years old, or I had a girlfriend who I would do anything to forget about.
We set off bright and early on a Wednesday, as I had a week off school. First order of business: Museum of Flight, Seattle. Last time I was here... girlfriend. Not with her, but it's a place I want to remember without having to remember her. I'm strange, yes. We then got in the car and drove to Astoria, which I had done only ten months before. But I was replacing lots of memories. When we arrived in Fort Stevens State Park, I was flooded with good memories, since I hadn't stayed here since I was eleven. Those memories can stay, but I also have it fresh in my memory now. When visiting the Peter Iredale Shipwreck, I even replaced the photos from when I had a girlfriend with nearly identical photos. Certain things stay in my mind from the trip a year ago, but most have been replaced by this more recent trip.
That trip represented a release from childhood, I could travel on my own accord. I was over seven hundred kilometres from home. This replaced the memories of going just where my parents organized.
Today I am going to Biology to replace the flawed knowledge of the genome that we were fed in grade eleven, which is a perfect example of a practical application of this process. I'll be replacing the memories of that class, including the harassment I endured in that room.
Maybe it'll all work out, maybe I'll be able to replace what I remember with great things I love.
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