Dear Memory: Little Reminders

Dear Memory;

I have been going through my days trying to be dutiful and get things done that need doing. I set myself some bit of schoolwork, and to continue steadily packing my things into boxes for the move on January first. I have returned to tracking my activities in a variety of categories by scoring myself points for them day by day, and have gotten better about recording each day either in the day itself, or the day after while memory is still fairly reliable.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been repeatedly been reminded of you in a painful little way when I pull up the sheet to record my points. For the past couple of weeks I have been wanting to mention it here, but my writing has taken a different direction and it seemed a bad time. My document is divided by weeks, not by months, and it starts each week on the Wednesday, simply because it was a Wednesday back in July when I first thought up the system and decided to use it.

So, since early November, every time I have returned to the document to record points, in the first visible area of the sheet which Google docs must sit on for a moment while it loads, in the small description box under Oct 30 has been the text, "farewell to Fish", my recording of the most notable thing to have happened on that given day. It has given me little pangs over and over again to see it. In another couple of weeks I will be on a new sheet and past it, but it is something that turned my mind to you in a particularly bittersweet way since the silence fell.

Another thing has been the audiobooks that I have been listening to. Jane Austen, old classic literature that I got from freeclassicaudiobooks.com. The quality of the reading is often not very good, but I have been enjoying the stories anyway. Of course, Pride and Prejudice rang quite close to home with the wondering whether someone far away actually loves one, and still loves one after mistakes and obstacles have fallen between you. Now I am listening to "Emma", and I think it has not really gotten into its strength yet. Still, today I was almost vexed to find all of a sudden one third of the way through a part of it about some young lady being anxious to go back to Ireland to return to her family. It begins to be irritating how many things casually spring up to point there, all because it means so much to me now.

Earlier, this morning, while going through my things to pack and sort them for the move, I found another reminder. Of course, there are many among my things, so that's no surprise. For instance, I still keep a bus ticket that brought me once from Dublin Airport out to Athlone. But this is a special one, a precious one. I found those little slips of paper, bundled together, that I saved from our exercise of suggesting things to do together. I looked through them all, remembering and wondering. Such sweet, humble little things are written there. Some of them, we did do, I think, after writing them. We went to a restaurant, for one. Humble little dreams, affectionate wishes for happy times future. I keep them still. I will probably bring them with me when I come back over the sea. Perhaps there is yet the chance to see each one fulfilled. Perhaps.