The Leaving

So today is Sunday! Happy Sunday!! I felt like I should write more consistently because I feel like it will help improve my writing the way it did when I was writing weekly as a missionary! So here is a little something:

This whole week I have been contemplating on memories. I feel like it's a huge part of our lives; yet it is something we don't talk about that often.

The reason why this topic has entered into my mind is because I have recently been engaged in the book The Leaving by Tara Altebrando. The book is about 6 kids kindergartners who go missing. 11 years later, Only 5 of them return home and their memory is wiped from them (from the last 11 years). The whole conflict of the story is these kids (now teenagers) trying to remember what happened to them for those 11 years, who their captor is and figuring out what happened to the 6th person that didn't come back. 

It's a really interesting story with a bit of romance involved too! I was so hooked I couldn't put this book down. However, the thing I learned from this story (always gotta learn a lesson right?) is that we shouldn't let the past define who we are now. In The Leaving, (and beware, I'm going to reveal a spoiler), what happens is, these people take the kids as part of an experiment to try and alleviate them from bad childhoods by separating them from family and bad family situations and instead, filling their childhoods with good memories. This experiment seems harmless at first, when you think about it. I mean, who doesn't want good memories of their childhood?

But I think it's important to be informed. To know the bad. So you can know the good! To know there is evil in the world so you can know how to change it and to make it good! And of course, in this book, it talks about this kind of society being so corrupt because everyone would pretty much be blind to the truths and reality of life. The truth hurts, but at least it's truth. 

So after reading the book, I couldn't help but relate it to my own life. I recently have been struggling thinking so much about my mission and wanting to be there more than where I am right now. Trying to figure out how I can escape my life now and go back to what it used to be, better and happier. And all those memories I created on my mission, I feel, day by day, that I will lose them the more I am here. 

But then I went to the lake today and started talking with my friend, Haley. And she told me about her experiences with some things that happened while I was gone on a mission. Memories that happened in her life. And how she desperately missed those memories (or some memories she didn't miss haha). And I said "We don't know what we have until it's gone." 

But I think sometimes we get so caught up in what happened then or who we were or even...what we want to do in the future or who we want to become. 

We don't focus on the now. Let's create those memories now and be in the moment now, so we don't long for it later. I know it's hard. It's hard for me at this point in my life. But we are going to miss today if we keep missing yesterday. We might not remember every aspect of our life, but we sure will remember how we felt. And I think the most important memories are the ones that matter anyways. 

Love Alicia