Picture this.
You are chillin’ out, maxin’ relaxin’ all cool… kicking it at home on a warm summer evening. You know, living your life and just doing you. Probably spending endless hours searching for something to watch on Netflix. Suddenly, your phone rings. Like anyone else, you let it go to voicemail because… well, who calls anymore? If someone wants to talk to you, they can text like a normal human. It’s probably just an automated bot trying to sell you something anyways. You break from Netflix to raid the fridge for a snack you know doesn’t exist in there. You had finished the last of your groceries on Thursday. Another look won’t hurt, though.
As you stand there staring at a nearly empty fridge, a second phone ring breaks the silence. Geez, this fella is persistent. You decide to answer it just in case it’s actually important.
"Umm… Hello?”
The voice coming from your touchscreen sounds hollow and dry. In a haunting tone, the elderly sounding man says your name slowly. After a chilling pause, he tells you there has been a death in the family. Your heart suddenly sinks, and you feel blood rush from your head, leaving your face pale. The mysterious man tells you that your rich Great Uncle Lester has passed away and has written you into his will.
You had no idea you had a Great Uncle Lester, but the voice on the other end of the phone explains that your unknown uncle was a reserved man who had found great wealth during his lifetime and wants to pass on his secret to someone who would seek after it… if they dare. The statement seemed corny and over the top, but your interest has peaked between faux-sadness about a stranger passing, confusion from the odd situation, and strange tales of riches being passed onto you. So whatever… you only live once, right? You decide you are down to see where this leads. Watching Netflix reruns was getting old anyway.
Cryptically the man on the other end of the phone states that your dead relative’s instructions to wealth will be arriving “when the sun finds its grave.” This is followed by a raspy breath exhaling in anticipation from the stranger’s end of the call. Half entertained yet slightly annoyed by this creep’s instructions, you decide it’s time to get off the phone.
“Cool story, bro. Thank you for that info, I gotta go now…”
You hang up.
Thinking about the weirdo’s last instruction, you open a weather app on your phone to see that the sun will be setting at 7:52 pm today. At that moment, your eyes shift slightly up to see the time is 7:51 pm. Then…
KNOCK. KNOCK… KNOCK…
Silence.
Edging towards the door, you look through the peephole. No one to be seen. Cracking open the door, you notice an off-white envelope sits propped up on your step. Examining it carefully, it has an old-time wax insignia seal and your name handwritten on the front. Dirt remains in the form of a handprint on the edge of this package, where the mysterious messenger had once gripped it. Now back inside, you open it to find two pieces of wrinkled parchment. One a map and the other a note that reads:
Dearest relative,
If you are reading this, then my time in this world has ceased. I have instructed my assistant to spare you from the details of my death and simply deliver the package you have just received. You may not know me, but I have been observing you and your desire for life, adventure, and meaning since you were a child… I have spent my own life acquiring both comfort and regret while living as cautiously as I could. In all this safety, I had missed out on living even when I had breath in my lungs. I did not search and fight for depth in my life, as I know you do. Despite this, I have uncovered a map to great treasure… we shall call it a gold mine for the time being. These riches are still hidden for you to find and dig up. You will not find any “no trespassing” signs, legal restrictions, or any physical dangers on your way to it. If you just dig in the prescribed location, you will find great wealth. When, and if, you are ready, follow the instructions on the map… I know you will find it and gain riches that most never obtain. I'm sure that you will have the courage to seek what I could not bring myself to dig for.
Sincerely,
Great Uncle Lester
You lower the letter and look at the map, thinking about how this night has taken a very bizarre turn. You roll around what has just happened in your brain on the way back to your room. Habit urges you to return to your Netflix binge, although your sense of adventure overcomes that sensation. You decide to go for it. You make your mind up to follow this map to the treasure. Unfolding the map, a layer of dust falls to the floor, and you grab your car keys.
After driving on what seems like endless dirt roads, you are led into the woods where you come to a dead end. Determined, you park and force yourself to take your first step into the dark. An owl makes itself known in the distance, and you feel chills run down your neck. With flashlight in hand, you are guided by the map past countless trees towards your destination.
After a mile of careful walking and tripping over dead logs, a clearing opens up. This is precisely where the map has been leading you, and your pulse quickens. The open area allows the moon’s light to once again illuminate your surroundings, revealing you have been led directly into the heart of a graveyard! Worse, the map’s next instruction is to dig…
Rough.
Well, you made it this far, might as well push forward. In a surge of adrenaline, you dive in. Your flashlight drops to the grass as you use your shovel to lift a massive scoop of dirt out of the earth. Your eyes quickly scan to see if you’ve uncovered anything. You are taking a real risk with this, and there’s a good chance you may be unearthing a pile of bones. Possibly a whole skeleton could be laying just below the shallow ditch you are digging up.
Sending your shovel down for a second time, you immediately hit something hard. The jolt scares you, and you drop your shovel. Using your hand, you brush away some loose dirt and uncover something hard. A shiny piece of expensive metal exposes itself as the full moon above illuminates the graveyard with a soft glow. When you pick it up, you realize that the gold you found is really a forgotten joke you used to share with your high school friends. It was such a dumb joke, but it made sense in your circle, and you almost tear up laughing so hard that all the great moments you had in class with those friends. It wasn’t actual gold, but still… this is freakin’ awesome!
Moving to another spot in your ditch, you take another chunk of dirt out of the ground. And another. Again and again, until a familiar thud stops your shove. You look down, and to your horror, you realize you have just hit a bone! It's a femur bone. Suddenly you are flooded with memories of a past relationship. First love even… as long as you count your high school sweetheart as a serious relationship. At the time, you definitely did, and it was crushing when you discovered they broke up with you to be with someone else. Quickly you throw a thin layer of soil over it to block out the exposed remains of the memory. That one wasn’t fun, and you understand why Great Uncle something-or-another didn’t search for this treasure himself; why most people wouldn’t go searching for this treasure.
Shoveling out another hole near a tree, a rib is uncovered buried between the roots. This one brings up some nasty words said to you from your father when he would drink too much. Throwing it aside, you go a little deeper and discover a piece of gold that apparently was a lost passion for the arts you had when you were younger. That passion got squeezed out when you had to double up on jobs to pay for college. You are glad to have it back.
Another shine catches your eye. In your new hole is also a gold coin. You pick it off and clean it with your shirt until you can see an inscription, “Vince Malum Bono,” around the coin’s edge. You don’t know Latin, but vague memories fill you of an embarrassing incident in middle school. Of course, you wanted to just die when the event took place, but looking at it now, the memory was just comical. A good memory to add to your Awkward List. You decide to keep it.
While tossing the coin into your backpack, you notice that the gold memories you just picked up were covering something else. Bending down, you come eye-to-eye socket with a cracked skull bearing names of people you had hurt written all over it.
“I told them I was sorry! I thought I was past this mess… I’ve changed!” You shout at the lifeless bones laying where the good memories one rested.
This place is getting hard to stomach. Stepping back, you wonder if digging here is even worth it. Grimy and sweaty, you gather up the memories worth keeping while your frustration fades. There was no other way to get these memories back without digging through those bones. It was messy but worth it. In the back of your mind, you know you will be back to continue digging for more gold.
Digging Up Your Past
As you may have guessed, this melodramatic analogy paints a picture of what it can be like sorting through your past. Unearthing your forgotten memories can often feel like we are searching for gold in a graveyard. You have a lot buried within you from thousands of hours of memories, experiences, interactions with other people, lessons learned, heartbreaks, adventures, lost hopes, favorite times, and life-changing events. Sometimes we find golden memories that have shaped who we are today, the good stuff forgotten over the years.
Other times we uncover old hurts we never wanted to re-live again. These skeleton memories comprise all the awful moments you have buried or suppressed; the ones you hoped were dead to you forever. They are made of the hurts, mistakes, and shame we stored away and hid from our friends and ourselves. Sometimes the skeletons in our closet are actually buried in the backyard of our minds. We dig a ditch to hide them in that is so deep, we forget they are there.
Both gold and bones often seem buried together in our minds, and it's challenging to excavate one without finding the other. This won’t always happen when you think about old memories, but when you dig deep into your past, it’s not uncommon to hit a buried bone or two. Life happens, and some things are hard to get over. We suppress bad times in our lives or avoid them, so we won’t have to deal with the pain and frustration they bring. This is functional for most people, but really it just means we have those skeleton memories rotting inside us. Sometimes that rot even comes back to life in forms we don’t expect, such as bad moods, anger, depression, fear, and the like. These zombie memories will attempt to ruin our lives if we don’t take care of them the right way, but you will get plenty of tactics on how to handle them soon enough. Right now, you need to focus on that buried gold, the good stuff within you that should be brought back to the surface.
Gold Rush
Conjuring up the courage to dig for good memories isn’t just for nostalgia. The feel goods are great, but there is more to it. You need to dig deep to learn and grow. Most of all, you need to dig because the end result is freedom. No one should fear what is inside of themselves. Sure there can be plenty of scary things inside of us, but the junk needs to be addressed so we don’t have to spend our lives with shallow thoughts or feel like we have to run from our pasts. Some believe that keeping old memories or events buried is what strong people do. I’d argue that those who face their skeletons and the monsters within are far braver. I’d say they are far more free.
I’ll level with you; I often dive into my old memories for the sake of my own sanity. I can ride the highs and lows of what’s going on around me more than I’d like to admit and have a problem of being too hard on myself. It gives me a certain drive in life, but can also recluse me when my self-doubt creeps in. When I take a minute or two from this manic-depressive behavior to chill, I can see how all those past highs and lows average out. I step back to see the bigger picture of my life. I remember my value, my relationships, and what's real. It keeps my bad days from controlling my life. This practice took time, and I had to dig up my share of bones to uncover enough gold to make it worth it. Still, the trouble it took was worth it to have that kind of freedom and stability in my life. It will be for you as well.
Spend time working on your own freedom, and don’t be afraid to dig around in your memories. You have years of them, and some can only be appreciated in hindsight. By doing this, you are allowing more depth into your life. You are preparing yourself for even bigger stories to come. Go shovel around your mind for a while, and once you are good and ready, grab that pickaxe. It’s time to take out some of those trauma zombies you uncovered from their graves…