Gabriel Garcia Marquez once said that “what matters in life is not what happened to you but what we remember and how we remember it, in order to retell it.”
We all have happy memories that bring smiles to our faces, those memories like clear water that the sun kisses while saying goodbye in warm afternoons. But as life is a mix of emotions, our memories are inseparable from feelings, both joyful and painful.
I think that our lives are like collages, that blend happiness with hardships. A little bit of craziness, lust, curiosity, passion, a few grudges, some forgiveness and love. But not all collages are the same, and it’s their unique mixtures are what makes us, us.
I wouldn’t ever wish pain or hardship on anybody, even to people who don’t know nor like me, but if there’s something I’ve learnt, it is that even the most painful moments have a purpose. They make us appreciate the good times, help us improve as individuals, and, as much as we might hate to suffer, those memories and experiences can be put to good use. We can transform them into something good. Even if something devastating, a life changing event has happened to us, we can still have the power to turn things around.
We may feel those agonising memories as a burden, and that’s ok. But we can still turn them into something good. Sometimes, we can even feel those memories dragging us to the edge, but we can still turn that around. We can feel they hunt us, and yet we can still turn them around.
It’s not easy. It requires hard work. We have to try hard, sometimes even harder, but if we are willing to see at least a little bit of hope every morning, we will be able to get through the day. Was this what Gabriel García Márquez meant? That it doesn’t matter what happened to you but what you do with what happened what really matters?
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