Forgetting.

               Living with the voice of a WWII veteran constantly broadcasting his story to me has changed a lot about how I feel today, Memorial Day.  When I'm writing, the voice of my narrator feels very close, and real, like a radio station being picked up from 1951, a crackly station played only to me, through which I become a messenger.  My book, which I have finally finished after years of construction, is about a veteran of WWII who watched many, many of his brothers die in the European Theatre.
               Because of this narrator, I've tossed myself into several books about the war...The Forgotten 500 (buy it here The Forgotten 500 ), and The Monuments Men being two of my favorites thus far, as well as jumping into Part 2 of my own book...so the death toll of WWII has been fresh for me these past few months.  I've been in it, because that's where my Narrator is, still coping.

Circe Taurus Izaboo.  

               The story he tells is about what happens NEXT for him, and his guilt for those he left behind in Europe.  Enthrallment with the past and nonstop-fingers-are-beating-the-keyboard-writing did something peculiar for me this month:  I was writing so much that I remembered May 12th as nothing but Circe's birthday, and today I celebrated Memorial Day with a humble and thankful heart.
               In remembering only Circe's birthday, I forgot something that was once fucking huge...my Unwedding Day.
               Two things:  First, Circe was my hero and best friend, the Rottweiler that taught me everything I needed to know about life, love, dogs, myself, dignity and humor, forever and ever amen.  She was born on May 12th 1997 and died on January 14th, 2009, and those two days are hung on my heart.

Unwedding Dress.

               Second: May 12th was also the planned day for my wedding years ago, which I cancelled.  It's been, for 2+ years, a day that I remembered mostly for what it wasn't rather than what it was.  Certainly I have felt bitterness, remorse, anger, "what the hell was I thinking" and confusion, but this year I felt nothing.  It's the best nothing I have ever felt, and it's the best thing I have ever  forgotten.
               The year of my Unwedding, after the cancellation and the lost deposits, I put on my wedding dress (a cute little casual vintage lace mini dress) and went to see a movie in the graveyard at Cinespia, Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood, with my friends and family.  It was a way to "put it to rest" and move on, but it has been clearly on my mind each year until 2014, when I forgot completely that this was the day I dodged the biggest bullet in existence.
                I believe very much that if I would have gotten married on May 12th, 2012, I would be a statistic of divorce by now.  As hard as it's been to separate myself from that life, it would have been harder to negotiate a divorce.  Cancelling a wedding and breaking off an 8 year relationship was devastating, and the ensuing questions about my marriage status weren't fun and never will be, but I am thankful for the opportunity that changed my trajectory, thankful for the inspiration that I have right now to write, and thankful for a spirit that can choose to let go, and simply...forget...because it was a small moment in time that doesn't matter in the long run.

Remembering all souls that have been lost, those with 2 legs and 4.

                Memorial Day is about remembering those that perished protecting our country, and I do so with a heavy heart each year.  I also celebrate Memorial Day by forgetting the bad things that have weighed me down so that I can better appreciate the good things we have because of those people, the things that all along we tend to take for granted because we worry so much about the trivial and meaningless.   Buried in the anxious and unforgiving past is no way to live, not when so many lives have ended prematurely, brutally, and often rather anonymously.  Their legacy often lives in our ability to forget the insignificant, and focus on the chance to be alive, to do good for one another.

Here's to forgetting the things that hurt you and remembering the people that free you.

Skeptically Yours,
Bigskeptic