remembering
the first part. supplemental reading to my song, "company".
Posters upon posters, colorful and adorned with various musicians and band members dressed in ripped skinny jeans and lip rings, movie posters of absolute favorites, like La La Land or Lady Bird, and memories, in the form of glossy 4x6 prints, scattered across and plastered onto sage green walls that probably know more about me than any of my closest friends or family members do. Every now and then, I’ll switch around the organization of things, or move my bed to a different corner of the room, but for the most part, my room has looked pretty much the exact same since I was fourteen-years-old. A cork board hangs above my bed, decorated with various concert and movie ticket stubs, polaroids, post-it notes, buttons, and enamel pins, with each mundane item holding a meaning of their own. Some of these meanings are schmaltzy. Some are just plain stupid. Nevertheless, from what was once just a clump of miscellaneous material with no significance, a meaning is born. Clearly, someone sentimental lives here.
I think I’ve always over-romanticized my life way more than I probably should. Growing up in the dry, bleak, squeaky clean, overwhelmingly white, and conservative suburban area that my hometown friends and I like to refer to as “Corntown” — after our agricultural specialty — I’ve led a generally uneventful life. I call it boring, my mom calls it cush. Tomato, to-mah-to. To each their own. My parents, both Filipino immigrants, had a harder time growing up (understatement of the century), so they did as much as they could to ensure my siblings’ and I’s childhoods were nothing at all like their own. And of course I’m extremely thankful, and forever indebted to them for so carefully carving this life out for us, it’s just that as a result, literally nothing has happened to me. Or, at least, it feels that way. Which is why I feel the need to make every little thing out of the ordinary that happens to me a big deal. Or over-romanticize it, like I said. I’ve bought into the habit of pretending my life is a sitcom or a coming-of-age film, where I’m the bored protagonist from an equally boring town, and every other interaction I have with someone is the main event of that day’s episode. For the sake of entertainment and self-amusement, I often viewed things in a more cinematic way than they ever really should be (and I still do). I grew up feeling the need to look at life through rose-colored glasses, because otherwise, things would be oh so very dull.
It’s early February 2022, and it’s way too cold in my room. It’s only 4pm. Besides the dogs, the only living, breathing beings in the house are myself and my mom. My dad’s at work, and my siblings are all at church camp for the weekend. We’d just gotten back from dropping them off a couple hours ago. It was a little bittersweet; I’d spent all my formative years going to those very same camps, and now, I’ve outgrown them. There’s a phrase that everyone who’s gone to these camps likes to say, and it’s what happens at camp, stays at camp. That sounds like a fun, little saying, right? Except for the fact that it actually doesn’t. Stay at camp, I mean. None of it ever does. In my experience, what’s happened at camp has always — always, always, ALWAYS — followed me back home. This is the first year where I’m the only one of my siblings not going, because I’ve finally aged out of it, and I didn’t sign up in time to go as a counselor. My brother is a senior, so it’s his last year going, and my middle sister is fifteen, so of course she can go. And my youngest sister, who’s twelve (but practically still a toddler in my mind, a result of eldest daughter syndrome), is going for the very first time, so that just leaves me. Besides my parents, and the dogs, of course.
Being the only sibling staying home from camp makes me think about all of the memories I’ve made during my own experiences of going. There are a lot of happy ones, but there are a good amount of…not-so-happy ones, too.
I remember the overwhelming scent that hits you as soon as you step off the bus: a combination of earth and wood and mud. I remember one year, it snowed the entire time we were there — a rarity in its purest form to happen to some kids from The Middle of Nowhere, California. I remember licking snow off of a fence as a dare and immediately regretting it because it was kind of gross. I remember standing on the bridge with someone and just talking, oblivious to the fact that it was the last time we’d ever stand like that together again.
I remember the exhilarating, squeezing sensation in my chest when I forgot to bring my water bottle on a hike that I didn’t realize was going to be so vigorous. I remember the late nights, the 3 a.m.s with my best friends, and having to physically hold my stomach because I was laughing so hard that it hurt. And the scattered shhh’s and whispered shut up’s amongst quiet giggles across the cabin, trying not to wake the counselors.
I remember sitting across this one person at a campfire during our last year. I remember noticing that they’d changed a lot recently and that we didn’t see each other, or even just talk as often as we used to. Initially, I thought it was because we went to different high schools, but as time went on, it started to feel like more than just that. I didn’t care about the romantic vs. platonic aspect anymore, a recurring back-and-forth I’d put myself through, every night before bed for years on end. But at my very core, what I really wanted was to have my best friend back, and it felt like I didn’t even have that anymore. I remember sitting across from him at the fire pit, pouring my heart out.
“Look, besides everything else, we’re supposed to be best friends,” I’d said really quickly, because I’d felt the lump in my throat beginning to take form. “That’s all I want. But if you don’t want that, there’s not much else I can really say here.” I’d forced the words out before my voice had the chance to break mid-sentence.
“Of course I want that. And we are friends. It’s just…” his voice trailed off, the way it usually did when he didn’t want to finish what he was saying, because God forbid it’ll reveal how he really feels about something.
“It’s just what?” I prodded, trying to remain confrontational. I wasn’t going to let this go. I felt like I had always taken on the role of The Pushover, for the sake of keeping the peace in relationships. I had sacrificed my dignity far too many times, and I made a mental note and promise to myself to stop doing that.
He lowered his gaze, avoiding eye contact. Typical. “I’m not the same person you met before. I just feel like I’ve changed way too much, and you don’t like who I am now.”
I immediately softened, and I hated him for it. I knew he carefully chose that wording. He knew I’d cave. Made it seem like an identity struggle thing, rather than just a plain neglect of our…dynamic. But I didn’t know that then.
I couldn’t put a name to the face. Or, rather, define to even just myself what I felt we were. Friends? It felt like more than that. Dating? No, it definitely wasn’t that, either. But, we also weren’t just friends, which was something I was beginning to stop believing we even were anymore.
Despite all the noise going on around us, I could only hear a couple things. My own breathing, and a little voice, that sounded a lot like mine, telling me to Stop causing problems, even though I wasn’t, I was just telling him how I felt. Keep the peace, keep the peace, keep the peace, it kept saying. And just like he knew I would, I listened. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did. I felt like I always would, when it came to him.
I took a small breath before gently saying, “Of course I like who you are.”
“You just wouldn’t get it. I’ve changed a lot,” he said, still not meeting my eyes. He kept fiddling with the buttons on his coat. Stupid buttons. Don’t look at those, I tried to tell him telepathically. But he didn’t look up. We weren’t on the same wavelength anymore. We hadn’t been for a long time now.
Memory is fragile. Years ago, I read a piece on memory, and it stated that each time we engage in the act of remembering something, we change the picture ever-so-slightly. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re all just lying, and making things up, but a large chunk of the things we believe we are remembering are actually false. Supposedly, it’s physically impossible for our brains to store every single detail of every single experience, so what we wind up keeping are merely the gists. Just enough, so that the story will track, and make sense to us.
Okay, sure — so memory is fragile. But memory paired with emotion, on the other hand, is not. A few years ago, I stumbled across something online — a research study at Columbia, I believe — that basically says memories that are linked closely with strong emotions are more likely to be remembered in vivid detail. Something about the synchronizing of hippocampal neurons being vital to the establishment of memory, and the greater the synchrony, the stronger the memory becomes.
So, I won’t relay to you what I think I remember myself saying or what I swear he said back, because I would be paraphrasing at best. What I can tell you is what my brain has stored for me — which would be the gist. I remember hearing him promise things to me for when we got back home, only for those promises to be avoided, and ultimately, broken. I remember feeling beyond disappointed. I remember being devastated. And later on, betrayed. I remember writing a letter to end it, whatever this was, once and for all. I remember all of it, I think, but what I remember most are the feelings that it left me with.
listen to “company” (out on all streaming platforms):
beautiful and captivating!!