The Past is in a Filing Cabinet pt 2

This is part 2. Part 1 here

In June 2020, I moved back to Alberta from Iqaluit. I had four suitcases full of things and one guitar to bring down, and I ended up mailing the suitcases and checking the guitar. Scattered between all four suitcases were my various cataloguing systems: a large binder of stream of consciousness thoughts from the past year, a folder of financial information, one of drawings, one of poems, and one of other assorted writing. Wrapped up carefully in my new fur lined coat was a shoebox that I referred to as my memory box. It was reserved for only the most important things to remember.

A list of the things in the box as I recall them:

-a shirt I wore in El Salvador with signatures of the people I saw there and a bracelet made by a girl I met there

-a photo book from El Salvador

-a collection of photos, including one that Emmy took of me with my hair everywhere at a church function

-some of my significant poems that I wanted separate from my general poem folder

-several plane and show tickets (tickets to wicked and phantom of the opera, flights to Iqaluit)

-a newspaper clipping with an interview article that I wrote on Pastor Emmanuel

The box was nearly full, and it was one of my most valued possessions.

That suitcase disappeared in transit- perhaps it was stolen in the post office, perhaps misplaced on it's way onto the plane. Either way, it is gone. I will likely never see it again. Other things were lost in that suitcase (a beautiful handmade coat and special sealskin mittens, several hundreds of dollars worth of thermal clothing...), but the box mattered the most. 

My memory doesn't keep most information long-term, but it does store knowledge very well. Sometimes I think that I somehow exchanged my long-term memory to remember information and processes forever, and I wouldn't change it, because this is life for me. I'm used to it, and it helps me a lot at work and in general life. But for me, memory really is stored in various folders, the notes app on my phone, and a huge box of notebooks and journals. The past is in a filing cabinet.

The emotions I felt too strongly to keep are encapsulated in years of songs (over 60, at last count). Situations that were far out of my control and never should have involved me are scrawled in margins and on the backs of notebook paper. The times I thought I knew exactly what I wanted and the moments I realized I had no idea are wrapped up in leather-bound journals, numbered for their place in chronological order. Very little is still accessable to my brain, although I'm certain that all of it is woven into me somehow, hidden in the neurons or something and just out of reach.

I wish I had that shoebox that I lost. If I could get one thing back of everything that I've ever lost, it would be the box. It has no monetary value, but it is my viable memory. Without it, I can't even remember what is inside- the list that I've made is missing huge chunks, and I'll probably never recall what they are. Those emotions, those events, are lost to me unless someone who experienced them alongside me happens to mention them. The depth of this loss is incredible.

I'm very careful in my cataloguing now. Everything that I have filed in my physical organization systems, even if it looks insignificant, has been scanned into my Google drive to provide some level of additional security. I will likely never recover the tangible memories that I've lost, but I can do my best to avoid losing more. 

Someday I might need to downsize my memory collection- it's a pain to move with boxes full of just papers, but right now I need the files full of songs and poems and drawings. And perhaps someday I will want to share some, as a testament to who I have been and what has shaped me so far. 

-Aliya