Remembered.

There is much weight to that word (the title of this, that is) in my life right now.

Perhaps there always has been.

Indeed, there always has been.

Someone told me today, that Zachary is a great name, and I should live up to it. I'm not quite sure what she meant...but I agree that it's not a bad name, and I had to assume she knows what it means. It's not her husbands name and she didn't say anything about having a kid or anything named Zachary...she said it was a great name...and that I should live up to it.

Zachary means "The Lord hath Remembered" I'm not sure the hath is necessary...but I prefer "th" to "v" whenever I get a chance to do the swap.

I'm not quite sure what to think about being randomly told to live up to my name, but if that was at all from God, it has to mean that I ought to live up to the meaning of my name.

And I don't even know how to live up to being remembered. Is there even anything to live up to? It's just something I am right?

But I think there is more to it than that. Certainly, at face value, it's just a fact. The Lord has remembered me...and I know that from a long life of pain, let downs, and glorious redemption mixed in with great joy, sorrow, happiness, laughter, and victories. It would seem that if God has done anything in my life, it has been to remember me.

Maybe I'm just reading my life into the meaning of my name. Thankfully, I'm not named Cassandra (which means "she who entagles men").... names don't always mean much, so why should mine be applicable?

Because it does mean something, and it means something great...and it means something true for all of us...but it's still my name.

Forgive my lack of post-modernity in claiming a name, but when we're recentering on God, that's when all post-modernism falls to the wayside (sorry Lacan).

There's something to being remembered. Something of an absence. Not that I think God is ever absent from our lives... but I know I've been absent from God many times in my life. In order to be remembered, there has to be an absence. I can't remember writing this post right now...because I'm still writing it. There must be space. Sometimes (horrible times....looking back) I put that space between God and I. But he never let go. He always "remembered" me. And He always will.

It's a past-tense name that comes with a promise. The Lord has remembered me....and He always will.

I remember too. It's one of my defining qualities... I actually suppress it a lot of the time because one of my other defining (and least desirable) qualities is a sort of "know-it-allism" So I act like I forget things a lot of the time when I don't...because I don't want to destroy a conversation through recitation or by making myself look better than someone else. In high school, people used to tell me that they wished they were as smart as I was...my smartness was just a good memory, and there's nothing all that appealing about it, because it's remarkably easy to alienate people when you know too much or just remember too much....especially with facebook, because I can know and remember, even unwillingly, things about people that I've no real need, desire, or right to know. Of course, I've never been on the other side of my memory... I don't know what it's like to actually have to memorize things and study for more than an hour for even the longest of tests. Maybe I wouldn't like it, but if I've learned anything in the 22 years and 12 days that I've walked the Earth, it's that people are far more important than facts. I would rather not have alienated most of my high school class by "knowing everything." But this is where I am.

And I like where I am...for the first time in awhile.

I remembered someone (who (although I believe erroneously) claims to be "hard to remember") in October from years (like 10) ago. I don't know how much the remembering had to do with anything, but that set a path out before me that has, after 6 months, finally made life here more than just bearable, but an utter joy. I've almost kind of stumbled into many new sparking and sparkling friendships, just within a week or so, and I don't want to leave so much now, as I've finally fallen into a situation that could only get better and more beautiful with time. But the remembrance is a promise. Just because I'll be leaving soon doesn't mean I'm losing anything. God's still going to remember me, and I've got to figure out what that means....no, I don't have to...I'm going to, and it won't be me figuring it out, it's going to be me seeing it...seeing how he will remember this time...and how I will too. Part of me feels like part of me is dying at the end of the month, when I move... But that isn't true. Part of me is reawakening or even coming alive...nothing happening now it lost...just transformed.

And I don't know what that means yet...but I hope to find out and I hope it's good...and if it is not, it just means that the next step will be, because that's what it means to be remembered. It means sometimes, the absence is felt, but never real.

And that is why memories can be painful. It is why memories can get us through lonely nights. It is why Taylor Swift fans have a hard time forgiving Kanye. It is why break-ups with the worst significant others require time to heal. Memories fade and dull in time but I don't think they ever quite die... they just silently internalize and shape who we become.

But we cannot live on memories alone.

-Zack

"I'll become what you became to me"
-Goo Goo Dolls