The Happy Memory Maker

I think a lot about the inane chatter of my own mind: the endless dialogue strewn with memories, trivia, quotes, and the occasional flashback. Lately the chatter has been friendlier, more constructive. It comes and goes. I have come to view it as a sort of constant companion. It is even part of the reason I have started blogging. Jenny suggested it would be good for me to have an outlet for my thoughts, my ideas, for the constant stream of mindless banter.

So I have these internal conversations with myself throughout the day, and more and more I have come to enjoy them. But it hasn’t always been like this. At some point, it is hard to say exactly when, the gentle narrator in my head was much more dysfunctional. If it wasn’t blowing things out of proportion, it was addicted to the excitement and intensity of my life’s drama while simultaneously terrified of the conflict.

They say that al-anon’s are “addicted” to alcoholic personalities. Often times an al-anon (a friend or family member of an alcoholic) will get out of a relationship with one alcoholic, only to quickly immerse themselves in a relationship with another. I guess this is the old adage, “wherever you go, there you are.” We carry our baggage with us from one relationship to another, until we either deal with whatever issues we have or they drive us insane.

Anyway. I’m not sure I can tell you all about all of the crazy thinking that I honed and perfected over the years. I just know that I have carried it with me for a long time. I don’t know if it was born out of some inferiority complex, my relationships with alcoholics, or just the kind of situational development that leads you down roads you never expected to go. I do know that at some point the way I thought about myself changed. The unwillingness to see shades of grey in any argument, the thinking that I was always on the side of “right” because I didn’t have an addiction, the constant ingratitude I felt for everything, my job, my relationship, and my life. The emotional barter, the inability to accept a compliment, the doubt and the blame. I am reminded a bit of the Dr. Seuss story “ The glunk that got thunk.” I know that I started out a bit of a drama junkie. I guess I went from my gentle intrusions into other peoples business to thinking that I could solve someone else’s problems, till pretty soon I had thunk myself a glunk.

There is a bit of magical thinking that goes on in any relationship. For instance, that the one you love is uniquely special in a way that discounts their flaws, that their character defects, and yours, are somehow lessened by shared love. Magical thinking can do strange things to a mind. My personal favorite is the Happy Memory Maker. It is that unique bit of spin that puts a rosy disposition on any unpleasant memory. The Happy Memory Maker is an integral component to any relationship basking in denial. It can turn a fight into a spat, hurt feelings into the claim “I’m just being honest”, and anger, the really crazy type where I’m flying around the house acting like a complete gorilla, into “frustration.” I have used the Happy memory maker to paint over my own crazy thinking, and worse to justify so much of my own bad behavior in my relationships. The best part? With the Happy Memory Maker, all your memories can be cheery ones.


It is funny to think that the friendly little voices inside my head don’t necessarily have my best interests at heart. While I am sitting there thinking about the changes in ancient Greek architecture and how they might have evolved into the funny little dormers that sit atop shopping malls, the voices are plotting new and interesting ways to fuck with me.

I think it was Al-anon that taught me that in fighting for a cure, I wasn’t part of the solution; I was part of the problem. You know, the whole “it takes two to tango” sort of thinking. The problem I feel is that it took me years to hone the Happy Memory Maker, to perfect its every little idiosyncrasy, and it might just take as many years to unlearn it. For now, I am grateful that the conversations in my mind are able to notice when it is just inane chatter, and when I am truly seeking spiritual solutions.

I suppose that is why I like the Bhagavad Gita so much. It is a conversation that takes place outside of space and time, the world is frozen in an instant as Arjuna stands, confused and eager for illumination. Krishna, the loving midwife, instructs Arjuna not in the linear path to the summit of enlightenment but in a circular route that returns again and again to a central point, the letting go of the fruits of action, over and over, again and again.

Krishna is neither impatient nor hard, (I think there is an important lesson in being gentle to oneself here) though his message is at times very intense, even as he patiently guides Arjuna through a quagmire of questions. “How should I live? How should I act? What is my duty?” and each time Krishna responds, “Act in this way. If that doesn’t work, act in that way. Let go. Be calm. Don’t give up.” Krishna’s message doesn’t come at the expense of any particular religion or belief. The basic assumptions of all paths being that we seek to rid our lives of the obstacles that prevents us from living more fully. Krishna asserts that any path will, with sincere practice, ultimately result in a surrendering of our own selfish nature into the ultimate reality he calls the Self, the spiritual unification of mind body and spirit. I suppose in this way, free from the bondage and limitation of selfishness, one eventually discovers oneself to be truly happy, without the need for the Happy Memory Maker. God. Won’t that be something? Still, I am making progress, swirling ever closer to my center, who knows, making peace with the chatter, and quieting the Happy Memory Maker may be the start of something great

Postscript.
A few years ago, while in counseling, I coined the term Happy Memory Maker, while discussing with Jenny and our counselor some of the peculiarities of my different relationships. There are so many experiences here I wanted to speak and share about that would, I think help illuminate what I mean by the Happy Memory Maker. The problem being, some required a lot of back story, and others I would probably need to check with the parties involved before I shared so many intimate details. Finally there is stuff that, without the happy memory maker, is just going to take time before I can share it with more than a few close friends. None-the-less I have been thinking about how I view the past, and how it haunts us, and how we come to terms with it. So I wanted to write this post. I hope it wasn’t too vague. I hate gross generalities.