A coincidence of memories

A Facebook “Memory” strikes again. A couple days ago, I looked at that day’s “Memories” (image above), and that led me to share that post, adding:

Seven years after I wrote and posted this, I’d just said my final farewell to the love of my life, and today is the first time I noticed the coincidence of dates. It turned out, for me, the song really did end.

Back in 2012, I blogged about that Facebook post, and when I read that post to prepare for this one, I was struck by the fact my post started with, “Last night I posted…”. That suggests my 2012 Facebook post was about what happened on the evening of September 23, 2012—exactly seven years before our final farewell to Nigel on September 23, 2019. My Facebook post was dated September 24, which means I started it the night of September 23 (I presume I posted it after midnight, when it became the 24th).

I then added a comment to my Wednesday post:

As I was doing today’s post, I was thinking about the whole song metaphor. The thing is, there will always be new songs, some will be great, others off key and pitchy, and still others kinda elevator-style, but there will always be new songs. That doesn’t diminish or cancel out the old songs—the new ones often couldn’t exist with the earlier ones—but all those new songs can take us awhile to learn, and that’s okay.

Joni Mitchell said about dreams, “There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty, Before the last revolving year is through”. We can’t know about new dreams or songs until they happen, but we can work to be ready for them when they arrive, and that, I think, makes all the difference.

I wrote all that for Wednesday’s Facebook post without having read my 2012 blog post. Now that I have, I'm kind of relieved that their themes are consistent (that doesn’t always happen when I return to a topic years later). Both are also consistent with everything I’ve said about love and grief, so clearly I mean what I say.

When that Facebook “Memory” pops up again next year, I’ll see the coincidence of dates that I never noticed before, but I’ve probably now said everything I have to say about that particular event in 2012. I may not have a great memory, and sometimes I miss obvious connections, but I do have a blog. That’s often enough.