Anything + Special Person = Memory

Warning: Mostly serious post ahead. Detour here or here to avoid seriousness.

Today's post was going to be about whether or not using excess babies as footballs was morally correct, but I received a strongly worded letter from the American Baby-Football League yesterday advising me against it. Turns out they're gaining quite a lot of popularity and some of the strong words in their letter were 'cease and desist'.

Cease and Desist is lawyer-talk for "Quit that shit."

SO. Instead I'm going to talk about something that I've been thinking about lately, that a good friend of mine got me pondering. He walked up to me the other day and asked me out of the blue if there were any foods that I had started eating because someone else (specifically a girlfriend) really enjoyed. I thought about it and realized that the answer was yes, there were a couple things that I had never really liked before, but started eating and now enjoy because the woman I was with at the time really liked them. We agreed that it was kind of strange, and there the conversation ended.

But then I couldn't help but keep thinking about it. Why do I like those foods all of a sudden? I don't think that my taste buds just changed all of a sudden to allow me to like them. I wasn't eating them just to make her happy, she didn't really care either way if I liked it or not. Not to mention that since then we've broken up, and I still enjoy those foods.

This didn't make sense to me until I decided to watch a movie that another ex had really enjoyed, that I thought sucked (The Chronicles of Riddick. Blergh). But at the time, I watched it with her anyway, because I knew it would make her happy. When it came on the other day, I sat down and watched it, and was surprised to find that I was enjoying myself. And I realized that it wasn't because of the movie, but because I associated that movie with the girl, and that night we spent together watching Vin Diesel fight dudes. That otherwise crap-tacular movie had become a connection to a good memory, to a pleasant moment that I will always remember when I see it.


When I thought about it, I realized that those memories are EVERYWHERE for me. There's a particular scent of perfume that makes me remember my first serious girlfriend, this thing:

Fear its soulless gaze.

Always reminds me of the first comic/anime convention I ever went to, because I bought the hat (which I didn't like) for my girlfriend at the time. There's a cologne that one of my father's best friends always wore, and the scent of it always makes me remember the time he showed up in Florida after walking across the country. There are songs that make me think of people I haven't seen in years, and then I wonder where they are.

It surprised me that I've never realized that anything and everything we do can become a connection to a person, and therefore a memory accompanied by all the emotions you felt for them. Especially because I can't remember what I had for dinner two nights ago, but show up in the right perfume and I can tell you all about a random day with someone four years ago. It's good and bad, since there are things that I really don't want to think about some days; the fights, the breakups, that emptiness when you know that someone is gone from your life.

But as painful as those bad memories can be, I wouldn't give it up for the world. Because there's nothing like the simple joy of putting on an episode of South Park and sinking back into those good memories of the people, the time, and the feelings you shared.

Goooood times.

Thanks for sticking with me through a serious post, I promise they won't all be like this. Unless you want more.
Comment below and tell me what you think, see you next time: Same Bat-time, Same Bat-channel.