I learned something recently... that it's our memories that shape us, that make us who we are. They show us who we are, who we were, and hopefully, who we're going to be. And without them, then we are nothing... merely a shade of a person, of a person with no soul, no spirit, no clarity. For without our memories, we don't know how to feel, how to act and react, how to learn from our mistakes so valiantly, and yet, how to not make more mistakes, though learning from them is what gives us ambition, the hope that we can become better people. Yet, we don't seem to realise the importance of our memories... how much they should mean to us, is lost on people, and they often get locked away in the back of our minds, only to be brought forth when feeling nostalgic, or in remembrance, when the past is brought up forcefully, with no need for permission or allowance. And even in such occasions, the past is fleeting, never truly being grasped by our conscious minds, flashing before our eyes for only moments before it is banished back to the past.

And yet, if we only had the power, and the will to bring them to our minds; if we recognized the power they have on us, then we could be so much more powerful, so much more, and then we would realise that our memories aren't only the past, and our past, isn't our past, because it is what makes our present, and our future. So without them, we are truly lost in time, never really belonging in the present, never having any future, and no past, then we become a shadow... an invisible face in the crowd, never to stand out.

I know this because I experienced it. I lost all memories of my past, could no longer remember who my friends were, who my enemies were, which side I was fighting on. I drove em the brink of insanity. When you have no recollection of anything, it tends to make you pretty paranoid; how do you know who to trust, should you trust everyone or no one? Who should you let inside, who should you forcibly keep out, who should you let see behind the mask that is forced upon you? I was paranoid, completely terrified or everyone and everything, anything that moved, even a few things that didn't, even my own shadow.

It took weeks, months even, before I learned to trust again... and slowly, I came back from the brink of my paranoia, of my insanity. I opened up to people, who taught me how to see the good in people, and how to see the bad. One person in particular showed me how to live again, even though he too, was afraid of living. The fear of his father, of disapproval kept him from truly living, and yet, it was him who taught me how to live my life again, who helped me make new memories, to replace the lost and misplaced.

I let him in to my world, small as it may have been. It was cramped at first, there were many awkward situations and silences, clumsy accidents that come from being crowded, even in an empty room. Slowly, he began to see behind my mask, to see the person I was, terrified and crumbling... and he fixed me. Glued back together the pieces of my broken mind, and soothed my frazzled soul. And slowly, I became a person again, a perfect compliment to him. It was no surprise that we fell in love. Clumsy bumps and falls, became an excuse to touch the other, to feel the spark jumping from my skin to his, and from his skin to mine. An excuse to look into his stormy eyes, and to see the emotions there, the emotions he kept hidden from his face.

Our first kiss was the perfect moment. It wasn't romantic or planned... it was a spur of the moment, spontaneous kiss. But it was still perfect. And even though I don't have anything to compare it to, I know that it can get no better, that there is no one out there for me, who could ever be better for me than him. Some people think it wrong, some people are just happy that am I finally healing, but I don't care what they think... I'm just happy... that's all I have ever wanted.

So yes, our memories make us who we are, tell us who we are meant to be... that doesn't mean we can't try to be something else, some one else, and it doesn't mean we cant be somebody without them... we just have to try, have to become a new person, born from the ashes of the old.