I caught myself sitting around and daydreaming; thinking of all the places Eric and I had traveled, back before covid, when we used to travel, thinking of all the places maybe we might be able to go again if its ever safe enough to get on a plane…

I have all these memories of vacations, a collection of recollections of moments I had planned, experienced, fixated-on and identified with in the past. Over and over, I seek to arrange and build just such experiences – trips, events, adventures – that I think will bring me joy and satisfaction. This is literally what I live for, what I toil for, what I patiently waited out covid for, lonely and longing in my isolation.

The problem is that when I comb my memories, when I really pay attention, I can’t find happiness there at all. Mostly there is indifference, some shame/regret. But the memories I call “happy”, are all nostalgic; when I evoke them, they are tinged with longing and loss. Over and over during covid I observed this: I thought of a place I used to go, something I used to be able to do, a person I used to see. In each case, the overwhelming feeling I had was one of longing mixed with loss.

As a specific example, I considered one year where Eric and I spent New Years in Japan. We awoke before dawn to watch the sunrise over the Setto sea, it was magnificent and it stands out strongly in my memories of all our New Years together. The thing is, as I recall that beautiful sunrise, I experience deep craving. I miss that place. I miss that moment. I miss being able to travel. I want that again.

Of course, mixed in with the longing is also a sense of warmth, a fondness, a familiarity: This is a memory that is a cornerstone of my sense of relationship with Eric. The problem is, I already know these warm cornerstone memories, can end up being the most painful when we loose the person/thing we remember: When my dad died, it was these cornerstone memories, the fondest and warmest ones of our time together, that brought me the deepest pain of loosing him. Sure, I had a sense of the comfort I had felt on those special dad-daughter trips, but once he died, and still to this day, they became tied up with a loss and craving that tightens my chest.

I look for happiness in these ‘happy memories’ but to me they seem just like wine or vinegar or something else fermented. You know that once upon a time, there must have been sugar in that liquid, it is a necessary ingredient to create the ferment, but now there is just a trace of it left, it is barely a flavor in the final product.

What is especially crazy is that in memories of moments I was truly terrified, like Eric passing out at the cedar baths, I can still evoke some of the terror clearly, dampened but still present, but the same just is not true of joy.

This then is what I am living for, this is what I spend most of my life planning and enduring for, moments that are hit or miss, but always fleeting. Moments that when ‘happiest’ are the seeds of my future longing and sense of loss.