Penpal

by Dathan Auerbach

We all have voids in our narratives – lost time that we attempt to reclaim with best guesses. Most people have whole parts of their stories that they don’t realize are patchworks of guesswork, and those who do realize it aren’t likely to care. We want so badly to be happy – to live the kinds of lives that we always hoped we’d live – that we give gifts to ourselves by remembering things not as they were, but as we wish they were.

Our loved ones pass away or simply leave our lives forever too soon, and we think to ourselves, “I wasn’t ready for you to leave. It just wasn’t time,” because we’re never truly ready, because it’s never truly time. So we keep them in our memories. And when we regret that we don’t

have more memories of them, maybe our minds give us more gifts; gradually we find ourselves remembering them being with us in times and places that they couldn’t have been, and gradually we stop correcting o...

Some memories slip away through the cracks of our minds, but leave fibers behind so that we know there’s something missing. But this isn’t all bad. In fact, if we remembered every detail of every day, we might find ourselves so fixated on the past that most of our memories would be of us just sitting in a dark room thinking about all of our yesterdays – too focused on what was to care at all about what will be. And what of bad things? What of those things that we would wish had never happene...

it’s time for more guesses toward a...

But sometimes you realize that the memories were always there – you just needed to be reminded. When this happens, it offers a previously lacked context for memories that, while never missing, were never understood. This is a special kind of gift. Our lives are so short that it seems a crime to squander any of it by forgetting. Memories extend our lives backward through time, making them feel longer. And that’s wh...

discovered. As is often the case, remembering one thing helps you remember another, and as you learn new things about your old life, memories that you thought were insignificant (or at the very least irrelevant) parts of your overall story are suddenly its foundation. I began reconstructing and

Now begin in the middle, and later learn the beginning; the end will take care of itself. – Harlan Ellison

see a way out … but that would mean going back.

reanimated ink.

cartographers,

“I love you.” I was filled with so many different emotions. No one from outside my family had ever said that to me before, and somehow reading those words – which came not as the compulsory and reflexive expression that ends phone calls between family members, but from someone who really felt it – showed me why those words were so powerful. There were so many words that I wanted to say, but only a few that I felt I needed to say: “I love you, too.”

Since I began this attempt to learn more about my childhood, the relationship between my mother and me has grown increasingly strained. Each time she would give me a piece of my past, I could feel myself becoming more complete – the structure of my autobiography finally falling into place with the connecting of milestones or the introduction of a never-known fact

– but I don’t think I realized how much of herself she was losing in this process. Still, I thought we could take it. But maybe I was letting my wishes about the strength of our bond distort my perception of how strong it actually was; it’s often the

case that one cannot know the breaking point of a thing until t...

time. As an adult, I could see the connections that were lost on a child who tends to see the world in snapshots rather than as a sequence.

Sometimes I wish that he never sat across from me that day in kindergarten; that I’d never known what it was like to have a real friend. Sometimes I like to dream that he’s in a better place now, but that’s only a dream, and I know that. The world is a cruel place made crueler still by man. There would be no justice for my friend, no final confrontation, no vengeance; it’s been over for almost a decade now for everyone but me. I miss you, Josh. I’m sorry that you chose me, but I’ll always cherish my memories of you. We were explorers. We were adventurers. We were friends.