"I'm In the Mood For Love"

I love this song, though not for any stylistic or rational thing, I just used to sing it as a kid and I have fond memories of really schmaltzing it up. I still like it now, and I'm telling myself that that's because it really is an ok song, but honestly, I am incapable of knowing that for sure.

There's something about certain kinds of memories that grab us, move us beyond what makes any kind of sense. Sometimes that's ok, and sometimes that feels very not ok. My neck twinges unpleasantly at thoughts of some of the less than ok moments of sensory recollection. Why do we hold on to bad memories at all? Sometimes I wonder if some people don't--and is this a sign of their mental health, or their insanity?

For whatever potentially bad-parenting reason, I've mentioned to my almost-seven year-old daughter about a couple of teachers I had that were horrible to me, and she's fascinated by this. 'How were they bad?' she asks. 'Were they bad to everyone, or just you?' My original intent is just to tell her stories of my life, and that's mostly because I am fascinated with other people's stories, their memories of their lives, and I want to share that interest with her. But of course I sometimes say, shall we say, too much, and then I need to explain things that seem to be a real bother right now, things I was hoping to save for my retirement, to tell my grandchildren. It goes back to the reasons I have for not letting my daughter read my journals while I'm alive, why it's tempting to not let anyone else read them ever. All those embarassments, all that stupidity: it would be very nice to forget it all.

But crazy me, I feel as though it would be useful to remember, to learn from my past, to not repeat less successful chains of events. Surely it will. But even if it won't, I'm not sure that I'm ready to let go of any of my memories, good or bad. If they grab me, in particular, there's got to be a reason why that is so. Darn my desire for understanding.