the good kind of forgetting

I forget a lot of things, and usually this isn't good.  I'm particularly horrible at names.  I know you are supposed to use some kind of mnemonic device to help you remember, but I forget to do that as well. At times, names are offered up before my brain is ready to receive them, so it's in-out-whoosh-gone before I've had a chance to employ any memory device at all. At this age I'm starting to temporarily forget things all the time like common words, the name of the book I'm currently reading, and the thing I need from the grocery.

However, there are a few things that my body and mind have blocked me from remembering that are good to forget.  Like the pain of childbirth.  Try as I might, I can remember nearly every detail except for exactly how painful it felt.  I can remember, 28.5 years ago, that my stepfather was eating chocolate covered raisins while visiting my room during labor, and I screamed at him to get them out of the room, because the thought of chocolate covered raisins was nauseating. But I can't remember how it FELT. There have been other pain-related situations like this in my life.  If we didn't forget, how could we go on?  If we could remember the precise feeling of the pain, we might choose to forgo it all.  We might become obsessively safety concerned or avoid doing anything at all that might be on the scale of uncomfortable to painful.  My thinking here is not based on any scientific evidence.  This is just me, pondering.  Maybe other people do remember pain better, and thus do have more warning signals go off.  I tend to blunder on not worrying about it much if it is something I have set my heart on.  Prepare, use reasonable caution, and then let that worrying go. As the saying goes, so far my survival rate from difficult, painful things is one hundred percent.  These odds likely cloud my judgment.

I got to thinking about all of this because I saw a photo of Mt. Kilimanjaro a couple of days ago and thought, "Yes, I would climb it again."  What. The. Hell.  Yes, I climbed Mt. Kilamanjaro two summers ago.  Yes, it was amazing in very many respects. But I distinctly recall saying at the time that I would never do this again. Apparently I have forgotten the bodily suffering that led me to make that statement.  It was cold, so extremely cold, especially at night.  But it's not always cold there, and anyway, it's a warm April day here, and I've forgotten already how very cold a body can feel.  I also got sick and was throwing up and having diarrhea (notice a theme in my adventures?) while hiking at fifteen thousand feet. But the point is, while I remember the facts of the situation, and I can call up the good feelings, like how exhilarating it felt to be at the top, how wonderful the camaraderie and laughter felt on the way up, I have not held onto the physical memory of how truly horrible the bad parts felt.  I figure I could pack better next time. I could be better prepared.  It was all worth it anyway, to find myself standing on top of that mountain, to have experienced all that I experienced in Africa.  I probably won't climb Kilimanjaro again, simply because life is short and there are other mountains. But if, say, my sons asked me to go with them, I would. When it boils down to it, anything worth doing, many places worth experiencing, and almost all travel comes with the potential to be very uncomfortable at a minimum, and if all the pain I've felt came flooding back, I might just stay home, instead.  So here's to forgetting.  On to the next adventure.