How do you want to be remembered?

I feel like I’ve written about this before. On a blog, on paper. Or maybe I was asked by a friend, or a stranger, perhaps, and I gave an earnest answer.

What is sadder: forgetting or remembering?

When I was twenty three I got my first tattoo: 夢. Dream. Back then I’ve wanted a tattoo for a long while already, I just didn’t have the money to afford one. I don’t even remember how I got the one thousand pesos I used to pay for it, but for some reason I did, so I finally did it.

That was ten years ago. I’m thirty three now. I have six tattoos, none of which I’m particularly proud of, which is sad, too, because I remember believing at some point that I’d never regret any of my tattoos.

The proverbial naïveté of youth.

Not to say that I regret any of my tattoos. Each of them are a reminder of who I was when I got them. But I suppose that only works if I don’t forget the when.

I’ve been forgetting things more easily these days.

But I digress. Going back to the original question: how do you want to be remembered? About ten years ago I had an answer to this. I wanted to be remembered as someone who did what she wanted. Who not yield to societal pressures and regretted nothing.

Would this still be my answer now, ten years later? I haven’t given it much thought. Why am I even thinking about this in the first place?

#musings #remembering #forgetting #memories