Impact

It was two in the morning, and it had started to rain. But no, this was not the start of a grand adventure. I was simply up and engrossed, an animated show fresh on my mind. Simply through walking and breathing I was calming down from the artistic high I was on. I can compare it to the moment when a love letter is opened and you can see your name at the top. I could also compare it to the moment when you look down and see that a goal has finally been achieved through hard work and perseverance. Yet what excites me the most are the Show Bombs.

It’s those moments when we see a beloved character sacrifice their life to save someone who in the beginning could be considered the villain. Moments where teary eyed the lead finally can confess their feelings to someone, to be heard, to be accepted. In our darker days, it can be when the monster is finally killed, or the tyrant finally get’s the comeuppance they so rightfully deserve. In this case, my Show Bomb was finding love after that person had died. As I circled my street, I at some point stopped and looked up to the sky. It wasn’t raining in buckets, but rather in drops from a sink not quite shut off. These flecks of water ran down my face, and I could close my eyes and remember.

That is the hardest part after-all, my remembrance. Racing thoughts always crest of the waves of older memories, but these new memories become the coral reef’s below the surface. Sadly, they are bleached in many places. Imperfect memory is absolutely normal, but I hate it regardless. I want to remember every moment from the night I stayed up. How the music swelled and suddenly fell as the musician felt the presence of the girl that inspired him, and yet knew that she was already gone. How her letter, her last memento, caused me to cry uncontrollably. Yet I was angry because only flashes remained in my head, and it just reminded me of how it is every day.

I don’t remember event’s, and almost daily I can be reminded by friends or family of something happening only for me to look at them puzzled, the event gone from my mind. I can remember who I have loved, but not why or what we did, simply the start and the end. I can’t remember when I felt alive after college, only that it never came. The infuriating psyche that drives me forward and yet when I become inspired it is in snippets of word vomit, and like any mess it takes far too long to clean up before I can locate my gag reflex again. Wonderful imagery, but like memory only a moment in a string of thought.

It’s perhaps why I become so emotional during a show that I truly enjoy. I hope that I can remember it better if I love it or hate it with all my heart, leave me struggling to stand or breathe without flashing to what Show Bomb blew up inside my skull, caking the walls of my mind with art. It’s the high that I enjoy, and it also is cruel. It is wonderful, and yet at two in the morning I’m walking the streets, the rain on my face, and hoping beyond hope that I remember.