The Remember Game

I challenge you--the next time you see old friends--to NOT play the ‘remember game.’ You know of what I speak.

“Remember when you derpdyderpdydumdumderpdyderp?”

“Totally. And then you timtumtimtumdoopdydoopdydoopded!”

“Yeah! God those were the days…”

It can be fun, bringing up memories past. Or it can appear that way.

I spent a good portion of this past week seeing ‘old friends’ in Ann Arbor and Chicago. And Mike, observing it all, paid me a high compliment:

“You don’t really play the remember game with your friends.”

It’s hard not to. It’s hard to generate new memories with friends that you haven’t seen in years. But it’s worth trying.

Can you see an old friend and not even bring up the past at all? Can you live entirely in ‘the now’ with an old friend? I find that whenever I dig into the past for conversation it’s often out of fear, fear that I will lose this friend. It may disguise itself as good times now, but it really seems to happen in order to cement a friendship and make sure that we are still really, really good friends. Bad medicine, I say.

It is possible to generate new memories with old friends. All it takes is action. Instead of having a drink and just musing over the past, this past week I found myself going for a run, getting gussied up to go dance, discussing new movie ideas, trying new tricks on water skis (video coming soon), and making plans for the future (like babies)—all with old friends.

My friend Eric offered up a gem: we should legally have to change our names every seven years. I like that idea a lot. You are not bound by what people think of your old self. It’s an opportunity to free your self of any associations with that old name, an opportunity to reinvent yourself entirely. Obviously, you don’t need a new name to sever ties with the past, but it’s a fun idea nonetheless. I think my new name would be Harvey Shamunaburger. But I think I’d rather change my name like every couple hours, rather than every seven years.

The ‘remember game’ has its place and can be a healthy practice for sure. I just GOTS to be wary of how I use it. On the car ride home from an awesome couple days waterskiing in northern Wisconsin, I found myself playing the remember game with my friend Jason. But there was something different this time around. There wasn’t a lull in the conversation that preceded it. There wasn’t an air of nervousness surrounding our exchange. I wasn’t searching for something to cling to in order to hold on to something from the past. It was simply a fun memory that vibed with the fun we were already having.

“Did you see Paranormal Activity?” I ask Jason from the front seat of the car.

“No.”

“If you thought The Blair Witch Project was cool, then you’d probably dig it. Some of the images are still haunting me.” (Note: I’m not sure why Paranormal Activity has come up in two of my recent posts. Maybe something did latch on to me in Gettysburg.) I turn to Mike. “Didn’t I see Paranormal Activity with you?”

“Yeah. And you didn’t even like it.” (Maybe it’s time I change my name again…)

“Really? Huh. You remember when we saw Blair Witch Project in that hotel on a band trip?” I throw out to Jason.

He laughs a good hearty laugh. “Yep!”

That was the extent of it. The conversation didn’t delve into days of yesteryear. It was just an anecdote amidst a conversation of my unfortunate haunting. And I like it that way. Not the haunting, but using anecdotes from the past to simply color greater conversations of ‘now.’ Ironically, I think it’s the only way to truly keep friends anyway, by generating new times and letting go of the importance of the old.

Stephen Rumtumscallion. How about that for my new name?

I give it two hours.


-- JEFF