Memories

At times it feels like life started for me on July 19th, 2011.  And, in some ways, it did.  There have been many, many pivotal times that came before that date - but none that so fully changed the entire makeup of my being like that one day and all of the days that have come since.  The memories of my life before that date often feel like the memories of a stranger - as if I'd read them in a book or seen them in a movie.  I know that they exist, but I have a hard time reconciling the truth of the fact that they actually belong to me.  I know that on the surface, there is so little difference between the old me and the new me but the fact is that every little piece of me has been permanently altered.  And so oddly, only the memories that have existed over the past 3 and a half years feel like they are really mine.  They are the only memories I "own".  I have spent countless hours of my time trying to analyze what this is all about and why this is how I feel, but I don't come up with much that makes sense.  Only that that other person, the one I was, is someone I hardly know now and so her memories are just that - hers.  To me they are like stories told by an old friend - and what is most troubling about it for me is that Max's chapter belongs to her (and not me).