Every Scrap of Life

“It’s an unnatural state for a person to have no history. History makes us someone. Gives us a context. A shape.” — Severance, Episode 3, spoken through the quiet tenderness of Irving Bailiff. (John Turturro)

Some mornings I wake up feeling strangely lighter, and as the first ray of sun slips into my left eye, it feels as if I am someone new. In that moment, I often wonder whether life would be easier if I could shed the weight of my memories. Just as we clear the memory cards of our phones or empty out our cloud storage to make room for new moments, should human beings be doing that too?

I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in my late twenties and walked away with mixed feelings. Life wasn’t yet as heavy; my younger self still had the vigor to withstand the darker sides of the mind.

Last year, I began therapy—BWRT, or Brain Working Recursive Therapy. Over two sessions, my therapist gathered the details of my life through a long, intricate questionnaire, and then started working through memories, one by one. The goal was to train my brain to replace the most painful memories with happier ones. I was told to practice these happy versions daily and keep notes. I did it for a week. Then something in me recoiled.

Someone close to me once said I love my pain too much to let go of it. Maybe. I’m not the best judge of myself. But I did know I didn’t want my sadness replaced by something artificial. My sadness is as much a part of me as my joy. I was willing to live a heavy life rather than a hollow one.

But in those few sessions—however brief—I learned something essential: I want to keep every part of my memory for as long as I am allowed to.

Each touch, each kindness, each gesture and glance.

Each taste, each thirst, each alley I have wandered.

Each dress I’ve worn.

Each pain that has seared me.

Each winter that chilled me, each summer that made me long for the mountains.

Each book I fell asleep to with dried tears on my face.

Each smell I breathed in to fill not just my lungs but my belly.

Each morning that made me new again.

Each goodbye that returned as a softer hello.

Each letter that arrived unannounced.

Each song that made me yearn.

Each plant I watered.

Each bread I baked.

Each haircut that made me both familiar and changed.

I want everything that has lived in me to stay.

On Friday night, I watched Even If This Love Disappears Tonight—a story about two high schoolers. The girl lives with anterograde amnesia: every morning her memory resets to zero. Notes around her bedroom remind her to check her notebook and computer for the life she can’t recall. When love finds her, she becomes terrified of forgetting the sunsets, the fireworks, the fragile moments they share. She fights sleep because sleep feels like loss.

Watching her desperately clutch at every fleeting second, trying to stitch her moments into a life she could claim as her own, I felt a sharp ache. Perhaps because I, too, am always gathering scraps—trying to hold them close, afraid of losing even one.

Because these scraps, these fragments, these imperfect, beautiful memories—

they are my shape.

My context.

My history.

My life.

And I want every scrap of it.