Nonetheless, I am again participating, and offering up a little piece relating to this week’s prompt on “collections“

Write about a collection. Write about something you or ,someone you know, collects. Think about the “why” behind the collection – why is it important to collect this particular thing? How does it make the person feel to add another piece to their collection? Is the group of objects there to be seen, to be studied or simply kept together? Write a real life story or a piece of fiction
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She collected memories like other people collected stamps. Every little recollection of her life so far, stacked neatly in the tissue papered recesses of her mind was easily accessible at any moment.

At times, it could bring joy; the beautiful, bursting delight that relishing in a memory of pure pleasure brings. It could be called upon automatically, and spirit her back to that buoyant feeling in an instant. A smell, a song, a scene… Any of these triggers could set it off. Who wouldn’t want to relive their wedding day, the first smile that played of their small child, or what it was like to travel to some of the most amazing countries in the world.

But what about the more mundane memories?

Even a simple date on the calendar would be enough to set the hands of memory in motion. “This day last year I was recovering from that tummy bug”; “It was this day 3 years ago I bought those shoes that were on sale…got my nails painted pink… watched the Oprah episode about…”

You get the picture. It was like living with a movie reel constantly replaying snippets of her life in her mind’s eye…

Of course it should be no surprise then that this collection was both a blessing and a curse…

The flipside? It was a veritable Pandora ’s Box; when opened it was also bound to bring with it bad blood.

A dark and depressing remembrance could send her spiralling back to the depths of despair in lighting fast speed. That old hurt from a decade before could be as real and as raw as if it were inflicted yesterday. The first bitter taste of heartbreak, the day her cherished friend was taken from this earth, far too soon, the searing agony of childbirth… There they sat, as easily accessible as a library book propped up on the shelf, and able to be permanently plucked from obscurity and into reality without a moment’s hesitation.