The same old Cliche

I have a confession to make, an honest straight up, hand on heart confession. I make this not for redemption or for need of forgiveness, but to establish a truth. I do not remember the name of the first girl I ever kissed! There I said it, I remember she was blonde, that she lived somewhere in Devon or could have been Cornwall in England & I remember this supposed unforgettable encounter took place in the gardens of a hotel on the island of Crete, but I do not remember her name and for that I am not sorry at all.

I say this not because of some regret, or out of malicious spite, but to highlight an illusion we surround ourselves with, how people feed us cliché’s about what we will never forget, what we will hold to our hearts till our last pull of air. I don’t believe there are a set of events which each and every person remembers, I feel there are moments in an individual life which leave a mark.

Allow me to explain, if you’re a parent inevitably someone will have told you that you will never forget the day your child took its first steps, that occasion will be so ingrained that you will forever recollect that sense of pride. Bad news, you won’t! Oh you may remember the steps themselves but I bet you cant tell me what day of the week it was, what the weather was like or what the child was wearing without looking at the video you recorded of it, which incidentally I never believed, there is just too much coincidence that parents happen to be videoing their child at the exact moment the child decides its had enough of being on all fours.

Now I know exactly where I was on December 10th 2000, I know exactly what I did all day, what the weather was like, I can even tell you what was playing on the radio in my car at 8pm. Why do I recall all this? Because that day, that year at that time a momentous event took place in my life, an event which would go on to shape the life I lead now, but I don’t know where I was when John Lennon was shot, when Kurt Cobain took his life or when that posh bird crashed a car in a Paris tunnel.

What I’m getting at, in a very roundabout way, is don’t feel bad because you don’t remember your first kiss, don’t feel you’re a failure because you don’t recall where you were when the Berlin Wall came down. Despite common held cliché’s the only things you will remember are the events that affected your life directly & because we learn from past events they are the only things you really need to remember. Better to remember your wedding anniversary (no I didn’t forget it) than where you were the day Michael Jackson died, after all unlikely that Jackson will hold a grudge that you forgot his death whereas your partner will never forgive you for forgetting an anniversary.

Oh & to the blonde in Crete….. Thank you, I may not remember the name, but I remember the kiss.