#TBT 4EVA

If you could return to one memory, what would it be? And why? There are so many in my roster, I'd find it impossible to choose.

In fact, there are too many. I have some trouble with living in the past. The goggles I use to time travel are rose-tinted, casting a delicate shade of pink over everything I gaze on. The past is always optimal, always more cherished, never as good as the present. The present often disappoints expectations, which then prescribe a bleak forecast of the future.

What I forget is, the memories I treasure so much were once my present, were once my future. They were once something I set up in my mind for an anticlimax. I don't like the word "mindfulness," because it's too new-agey and vague for my taste, but I agree with the concept it advocates. I should better appreciate the present as a conduit between what has happened, and what is to come.

There's a well-known section from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, involving lengthy discourse between Alice and the White Queen about the function of memory:

“It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,” the Queen remarked.

“What sort of things do YOU remember best?” Alice ventured to ask.

“Oh, things that happened the week after next,” the Queen replied in a careless tone.

Neuroscientists have discovered the role of memory is not to simply archive the past, but rather, keep it as an active index that helps a person conduct themselves better in the future. It's debated we imagine our futures by making composites from past experiences, stitching them together to create a new synopsis for ourselves. By doing this we create a "mental wormhole," so to speak, that connects memory with foresight, or, past with future. Which means that in a sense, I'm doing what I should: living in the past. But I'm not supposed to buy a luxury condo and hire a decorator so that I can take up full-time residence there.

Although, to be fair, the past is the only place where I could actually afford a luxury condo and decorator, so. You know.

Henri Bendel halter top; Zara wrap-skirt and heels; Vintage bracelets.