I started going to therapy again recently. I’m still not coping with my difficult memories from childhood. One of the things I am afraid of is that my memories will overwhelm me and leave me broken.  My last session we did an exercise called the memory container to help me overcome that fear. 

A memory container can be something as simple as a Tupperware container. Just so it has a lid and can be opened and closed.  The idea is for the container to hold difficult memories until they can be processed and to control the flow of the memories. This has given me freedom. For the first time I feel like I can remember without being overwhelmed.

As I began to work on the concept of a container to hold my memories it was like I walked into a meadow of butterflies. My passing stirred the memories and they filled the air.  All kinds of memories floated around me; happy, sad, angry, terrifying. At first, I thought the difficult memories would be ugly, some dark warped thing but all my memories are beautiful, some are broken, some wounded but the memory is beautiful, not the thing that happened, that was bad, but my memory is beautiful . It makes me who I am. God’s grace redeems my memories and helps me see their beauty.

A Tupperware container is a fine functional container but I wanted a different kind of a container. I wanted a container that would hold my memories even after I have remembered and changed the emotional context of the memory. I want a place where my memories can be safe and free, not to organize and catalog my memories but to treasure them and allow them to stay and be remembered or to fade into the fabric of my soul and become a part of who I am.

My memory chest is a small chest I can carry in front of me with no difficulty.  It is wrapped in sky and edged with ebony wood. The top is domed and the wood wraps around the edges and across the opening between the lid and the bottom. The sky part of the chest is as changeable as the Kansas sky, sometimes brilliant blue like a summer’s day, sometimes grey with thunderheads and slashing rain, sometimes clear and dark with a million stars.

 The chest opens only to my hand and when opened it unfolds into a doorway bordered by ebony wood. Step through the doorway into the mansion where my memories live. Not organized, not catalogued, but free to stay or float away.  There are many rooms but the two that help me remember and reclaim my memories are the warehouse and the sorting room.  The warehouse has infinite shelves that reach into the dimness of distance. Memories wait on the shelves to be brought into the sorting room.  Some wait patiently or are silent and others clamor, wanting to be remembered. 

For now, I am slow remembering. I have taken the first difficult memory and am remembering. It came with two happier memories so I am remembering the three of them together.  I think the happier memories help give the difficult memory context.  Another difficult memory is trying to surface but the memory container has allowed me to tell it to wait.  It is almost like the memories are alive and the memory is impatient but it waits its turn in the queue until I claim the memory I am working on.

I am not rushing this process. I have denied my memories for many years which has given the fear power. It will take time. My goal is to walk peacefully, gracefully among my memories, difficult or pleasant, and see the world as it is in all its beauty and ugliness. To be able to express the greater truth of God’s love for all his creation. For the first time I feel this goal is reachable.

Heal me O Lord, and I shall be healed;
Save me, and I shall be saved,
For you are my praise.
Jeremiah 17:14