Time marches on

I've been neglecting my picture processing lately - and have files from 3 weekends that I haven't done anything with. Yikes! I like to be more organized than that, mostly because the memory is going and I'm not sure, looking at a bunch of pictures several weeks after they were taken, what they are. That's not good.

Why is it that weeks can blend together and separate events can get all jumbled up in our minds? When I lost my credit card a few weeks ago I knew I had been to the grocery store the day before, but my memory put me into one store when I had actually left it at another one. (I got it back, fortunately, after finally getting the place right.) I never used to make those sorts of mistakes - certainly not leaving a credit card in a store in the first place, much less not being able to reconstruct my day enough to know which store it was! Or when we had to wait forever to catch a ferry back to Seattle a while ago, I remembered it as the Bainbridge ferry but I think it must have been the Mukilteo ferry instead. It's disconcerting.

Does memory fill up as we age? Do I need to consciously let go of a bunch of memories to free up space for new stuff? I'm not sure I know how to do that.

And I was just thinking that I wouldn't WANT to do that, but then it occurred to me that I'd really like to forget all about the times I made stupid mistakes or hurt someone's feelings with an offhand remark or got embarrassed about something. (And over my 55 years I've sure done a lot of that!) A whole bunch of memory cycles are taken up with regrettable stuff. And, of course, every time I get down on myself much of that stuff lines up waiting to parade across my consciousness and make me miserable again.

Here's a ridiculous example: I had a Camaro that I bought in 1973 and had for several years. It was the only 2-door car I've ever had, and the doors were big - long, actually. One time I opened my door in a parking lot and it came into contact with the car in the next stall... whose owner just happened to be approaching the car. He yelled at me, of course, and I was mortified, of course, and I still remember the incident. Why? (Well, because of the emotional content and chemistry, but that really was a rhetorical question, not a scientific one.) If I could give up that memory, even if it was just in order to remember where that ferry line was a few weeks ago, I'd happily do so. 1975 or so was a LONG time ago!

I should work on that. I'd like to let all the miserable stuff go so I'd have more room for the good.

Anyway, back to those pictures... Before time marches on too far to know for sure, this one is in Gig Harbor.



(It's been a while since I posted a picture and I thought we needed one!)