The Best I Ever Had
Why “the best” memories should stay as memories
Picture this: a hot Spring day spent on a beautiful California beach, your hair is salty and your toes are still sandy. You’ve spent all day playing in the waves and collecting seashells with new friends and then, your parents take you and your friends to a little ice cream shop where they serve THE BEST ice cream you have ever tasted: blue bubblegum ice cream!
I still hold on to that beautiful memory when I used to camp at that beach with my parents every year. And every year we would go back to get ice cream from THE BEST ice cream shop in the world. Then, I got older and we stopped going camping at that beach…which meant no more blue bubblegum ice cream.
I’ve held on to that memory of “the best” ice cream for years and I recently took my husband to go find that ice cream shop, and have bubblegum ice cream together.
Well, I shouldn’t have done that.
The blue bubblegum ice cream was sickly sweet, the whole pieces of bubblegum were frozen solid and trying to eat the ice cream around the bubblegum was impossible. That is definitely not the best ice cream in the world.
And yet, I still hold on to that memory. Maybe they’ve changed the ice cream they sell? Maybe I used to take longer to eat it so it would melt more? Oh, that’s right, I used to spit out the bubblegum into another cup. Or, maybe it never was “the best” ice cream in the world.
Memories are malleable
The stories we tell ourselves are not fixed. Maybe you remember “the best” view you’ve ever seen, “the best” trip you’ve ever been on, or “the best” food you’ve ever tasted. Or maybe a recent event has somehow shifted what you remember of “the best” place you’ve ever visited, “the best” movie you’ve ever seen, or “the best” hike you’ve ever been on.
That’s because our memories are not stagnant and the things we remember as “the best” probably have less to do with the thing itself, and more to do with the events surrounding it. Maybe it was “the best” because of who you spent the day with, or maybe it felt like a once in a lifetime experience, or maybe it was a time when you were truly and deeply happy.
Whatever the case, don’t try to recreate that “the best” memory. Let it live there in your memory — exactly where it belongs. Trying to recreate it won’t ever be the same.
You may have a long-held memory that was amazing or “the best” for years, then one day it isn’t. I know I’ve had memories tainted by current events. I hold memories of New Zealand dear to me because it is one of my favorite places to visit. On my first trip there, I met the son of the chief a Maori village — he was young and so invested in helping his people. My experience at that village with him as our guide was “the best” cultural exchange I’ve ever had.
Then, I went back to the same village 12 years later. The son of the chief had left the village; instead of the living, thriving community he had promised to lead, a tourist trap was in it’s place with only vestiges of Maori language and culture left. Suddenly, even the original memory of that place and the chief’s son were tainted for me.
Conversely, I’ve had current events make past events more favorable and memorable. In Paris last year, my husband and I walked miles to get to Notre Dame cathedral. I’ve seen it before, but it is always worth a visit. Because we had walked so far, I was exhausted by the time we got there. I sat on a bench in Notre Dame’s grounds and just listened to the sounds of early Spring in Paris. It was a beautiful day, but only a blip in the eventful trip.
Less than a week after our return home, Notre Dame caught fire. The whole world watched in horror as the steeple fell and this monumental building burned. I nearly cried as I watched. My memory of sitting on the bench just outside Notre Dame has become one of my most cherished from that visit — knowing I will never see that grand steeple again.
Reframing
The good news is: that means you can change how you view your memories and the stories of your past. And you can choose to seek out the joy in events — even those that aren’t “the best”.
With travel and seeking out adventure, it is very easy to fall into the trap of saying that it is scary, and difficult, and ugly. All of that is absolutely true and if you focus your memories on that, you’ll never want to travel or seek out new experiences again.
You can choose to think everything about that country is uncomfortable; I choose to think everything about that country is designed to make its own people comfortable — how incredible is that?
I make a conscious effort to focus on the bright spots and the beauty of travel. I choose to remember the magnificence of Zermatt and the amazing landscape of the Swiss Alps instead of focusing on the hours upon hours of driving it took us to get there. I choose to focus on the incredible colors, smells, and sights of being in Marrakesh, instead of the man who leered at me and forcibly pressed himself against me. I choose to remember the beauty of the glowworms in Waitomo, not the flooded roads and terror of driving through a cyclone.
Your stories and your memories shine brightly as “the best” or “the worst” because of how you frame them. I’m a firm believer that the best views come after the toughest climbs — and my favorite places are not the places that were the easiest to explore or the most comfortable for me, but places where I learned the most. I am in charge of my own narrative — and so are you.
Make a point to look for the joy in the things over dwelling in the pain, discomfort, or sadness. It might be a difficult, conscious effort at first, but it will become easier over time — for me it has become almost automatic.
So the next time you are thinking about “the best” cookies — like my best friend’s favorite star shaped cookies — or “the worst” day — when you were crying at the purser’s desk because you didn’t receive a letter from home — remember, that is your story and you can change or re-frame the narrative any way you like.
Leana’s an avid world traveler who has been to over 40 countries and will be venturing to her 7th continent in 2022. She believes in ubuntu and that adventures make life worth living. To follow her journey as a plus-sized woman with unquenchable wanderlust as she continues to seek out all that the world has to offer, you can check out The Overweight Adventurer.
