I’m not usually a superstitious person, but sometimes, I can’t help but feel like the spaces I associate with bad memories retain a strong echo. Whenever I walk by them, the lights, sounds, and smells transport me into the past, kind of like a time capsule. It’s like my brain remembers all the emotions and bodily sensations I felt in that moment.
The bathroom I cried and threw up in between classes everyday. The room where I almost took my own life. The ambulance bay an overwhelmed and scared version of my past self realized that the semester would not turn out anything like I had anticipated. The library where I would alternate between crying and trying to write my essay, when depression made it so much harder to concentrate but I still desperately wanted to do well, even if it meant pulling an all-nighter.
My favorite book in elementary school was about the different stages in the healing of a laceration. These memories are like wounds, each at a different stage of the healing process. They keep track of everything I’ve been through, tough experiences that have made me the person I am today. Recently, I have been trying to teach myself to be proud of them instead of ashamed and scared of them. I see them as a reminder of how far I have come and of all the fights I have won to be back in this space today. They’re like the scars on my body—battle wounds that prove I am a seasoned warrior. They aren’t as vivid as they once were, and most of them have scabbed over.
I can’t completely erase the past, but I am still alive, and that gives me the power to write over it with new memories.
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