Remember to Forget

This morning, I went to log into my work e-mail account, only to realize that I had forgotten what my password was. I realize it's Monday and I didn't sleep much last night, but I knew the damn thing on Friday. What further concerns me is that any time I am prompted to change my password, I just go up a digit from the current one. For example, if my previous password were sparkles12, my new one would be sparkles13. (Rest assured, my password is not sparkles13... anymore).

This lapse of memory got me to thinking: Do I forget things because I subconsciously want to? For instance, I really don't want to be at work today. Nothing good awaits me in my inbox. Is my mind trying to protect me from something undesirable? Or am I just losing it?

To take it a step further, there are things I would like to forget that I can't. Or so I believe. If my theory of the subconscious acting as a gatekeeper holds water, couldn't the opposite also be true?

As much on the surface level I'd like to forget certain things, maybe my subconscious is overruling me. Maybe it wants me to remember those things. And only when I've reached a level of resolution (or at the very least, comprehension), will it allow me to cast if off.

My final thought (before I forget) is that when those things are allowed to pass through and it no longer follows you around, they are recalled much differently when you summon them back. Most times, the memory is smoothed of its jagged edges... the image gets Disney-fied.

In the song 'Time,' Tom Waits says this better than me (of course):

And they all pretend they're orphans and their memory's like a train

You can see it getting smaller as it pulls away

And the things you can't remember tell the things you can't forget

That history puts a saint in every dream

We often remember things the way that we want to, not the way they really were. We revise. The darkness gets bathed in sunlight and the villain becomes a saint.

Even if it's much harder to carry some stuff around with you, I think it's better to hold onto some of the things we would rather not.

Like your email password.