The human mind has a faulty memory.

We are wont to forget moments even if they are held dear to our hearts, in the end of it
all, everything returns to dust; nothing is more susceptible than a moment of time frozen within a
human consciousness. To make up for these shortcomings, we created more permanent ways
to store the moments and adventures that compose our lives. First we began writing, storing our
experiences within the confines of the written word to the best of our ability. We have been
drawing and painting for eons, desperately trying to capture the moments that flash past us
through each person’s own unique lens of the world; we yearn to share our experience of the
world with others, trying to move past the isolation of being alone in your consciousness. We
paint and we sculpt and we write in an effort to make ourselves and our experiences more
permanent than nature intended; no longer do we take our memories to the grave with us. We
created photography. We created a device that could capture the same light that our eyes do
and process it in a nearly identical way. With advances in technology, we have an option that
our ancestors could have never dreamed of; with a single, hasty touch, a small and insignificant
moment of life can be preserved perfectly and unedited and unfiltered for years or decades or
centuries, depending on the circumstances. Life is nothing without the tiny adventures of
day-to-day life with people who you care about or spend your time with. To be able to press a
button and capture a scene in its purest form, and to print it out into a tangible object with one
more touch and a few moments of patience is absolutely incredible.
I am afraid to forget.
The world in which we live feels very permanent. Change is difficult to detect as it is
happening; only in hindsight can we see differences between different points in the past and the
present. The internet and modern technology have granted humans a way to keep memories
indefinitely and unchanged, and it’s difficult to reconcile with our natural tendency to forget the
past. Keeping photos, for me, has always been a way to keep a record of my memories and the
time that I have spent living and learning and laughing and crying. A picture is worth a thousand
words, and my scrapbook is a written saga telling the story of my youth and the people I spent it
with. Someday I hope it will save me a lot of words, and I can show it to a grandchild to offer
them a window into a day long gone by, with details forgotten but an image persisting for as
long as somebody will take the care to preserve it.
And he’s not in it.
The person who I believe to be the love of my life and my soulmate is not in the
storybook I will pass on to a descendant decades from now and it breaks my heart. It feels like
he should be here; my life feels more complete with Diganta Roy in it, but it hurts that there are
no hastily-shot photos of his goofy smile on a bright and sunny day in that book. It’s dumb to
look this deeply into it, I know, but it feels like the fact he isn’t here physically when he’s almost
omnipresent in my mind feels perverse in a way I can’t express. We’re going to have to wait two
long years. Two years bound to be full of little adventures without the other, before we can see
each other, unfiltered and without a screen to bridge 808 miles of distance and a speaker
carrying a loving word to the other from a microphone stationed worlds away from the listener.
Two years I wish could be filled with little snapshots and laughter and holding hands as we
enjoy what’s left of our youth together, side by side. I’d use an entire package of that sacred
Polaroid film on his beautiful face in a heartbeat, but that can’t happen for a long while yet. I
know I will be patient and okay with the situation, but in the moment I just miss him with
everything in my being. We should be living life together, I don’t know whose decree it is but
there’s a tug in my chest threatening to drag me to the North and into his arms. Maybe it’s God,
maybe it’s fate, maybe it’s just hormones, but I know more surely than I’ve ever known anything
that we’re meant to be with each other. Maybe not right now, we’ve still a lot of growing up to do
yet, but I can wish and yearn and hope, for the time being, that he were here or that I were
there.
All I want out of life is a box or a scrapbook of aged and yellowed photos that can
showcase a life well-lived and full of love, whatever that entails.
Here’s to hoping.