Strangers with memories

We're strangers with memories.

What binds me to you, and you to me? Memories. Memories are curious things.

I remember your physical gestures, your face, the way you spoke, the way you thought, the way you acted. I remember how you made me feel. I remember what topics we spoke about. I remember all the tiny little things.

Slowly but surely, I was amassing more memories of you. But do I really know you? How can you say your own memories would ever completely describe a person? You know a person's tendencies. We learn how their patterns of behavior. That's how we think we know a person.

But a person is always changing.

Just 20 years ago, this person was a child. The child's looks, thoughts, behaviors - everything - changed. 20 years later, this person is an adult. Looks, thoughts, behaviours, emotions - some remain, but most of it have changed. Give a few more years - you'll see a completely different person.

So don't ever say that you really know a person.

You can know one's patterns of behavior - how their ego works. You can hate it, you can be thrilled by it, you can love it - But ultimately these things never last.

Know a person as that person is. To exist is a verb - it is something that goes on continuously. The only time a person stops changing in that way is when one dies and sheds the physical body.

When we love, at that one moment of stillness - these things no longer mattered.

That one moment of silence was when two beings connected.

So why can't we continue to connect that way?

Memories are there, but one should never hold on to them, because they obscure the view of the person in front of you.

Isn't this person amazing? Right there, in front of you. Not the image in your head formed from memories, but this heart-beating individual, pulsing with life?

You've just met him or her again. Today is a different day.

You and I are strangers.

But memories are our own. Cherish the positive memories. Live in the moment with that other person. Be completely present.