Casey_Seline - Learning to Forget--FINAL lyrics

There was nothing ornate about it. It was just smooth faux-leather, not any bigger than the notebooks she had used for school. She cracked it open, hesitantly rolling her thumb over the page corners. It was lined, as she knew it would be, and she wondered whether she'd stick to those lines. She'd heard, of course, about the people who didn't, cramming words into margins or fitting two or more lines of livelihood between the faint gray, preordained lines of the paper. Though it was taboo, she had always a**umed everyone did it. At least every once in a while. She opened the journal to the middle and used the heel of her palm to flatten the center crease against her desk, hoping to break in the stiff spine a bit, then turned back to the inside front cover. NAME: The only space in the journal where there was, and ever would be, a word that she did not put there herself. She picked up her pen, then wrote her name as neatly as she could, as though she was crafting her best first impression: Maxine Keegan And in that moment, Maxine felt five things: excitement for her future, relieved to be done with school forever, grateful that her handwriting was decently small, pleased that her printed name appeared casual, and fear for her impending d**h. “Everyone gets intimidated their first time,” Ms. Norben had told the graduating cla**, “It's perfectly normal to feel anxious or pressured when you first sit down with your journal. That's why we recommend you start off by writing some basic facts about yourself. Ease into it. And remember: you have a week, a week and a half at best, to write things in your journal before they fade completely from your mind.” The entire cla** paid rapt attention, a phenomenon that had been occurring more and more frequently in Ms. Norben's cla** as graduation drew closer. The cla** actually mattered now. Every small life sk** school taught them was of the utmost importance now. The graduates would be leaving their families and either pursuing careers or going on to get more education elsewhere. Maxine had never been attached to her parents. She wouldn't miss them. In the past, Ms. Norben's journal cla** had always been something of a joke. Reciting the laws, turning in practice journal entries, re-reciting the laws, and sometimes listening to the stories about crazy people who made the laws necessary. Maxine's favorite was the one about the man who never wrote in his journal. He was 349 years old before the government shut that stint down. What Maxine found most intriguing, though, was how the man had lived without making any memories. It seemed so sad. Immortality surely wasn't worth living with no real friends or family. Maxine couldn't help but imagine what the man had written. She supposed a lot of people wondered about what everyone else wrote, though. Looking in someone's journal was highly illegal. Even the act of asking about what someone else had written was unmentionable. In any case, the law now required everyone to write at least a page every two weeks. Maxine's anxiety reached its tipping point. She felt the weight of her life on her shoulders as she wrote: I'm shy. I'm not an athlete. I got good grades in school. I would like to work in a library. I have dark hair and freckles and hazel eyes. It takes me a long time to form thoughts and opinions and I often have difficulty finding words to describe how I feel. I am not extraordinary in any way. Seeing how little space she had taken up in her journal, Maxine felt relieved. There was so much room to write; the end of her journal was ages away. She would live a long life with plenty of memories. *** Months later, Maxine had taken up training at her local library branch. She spent her work time amongst the book stacks, sneaking off to the far and cozy corners of the building with a novel when her boss wasn't around; alternatively, she spent her free time with her small circle of friends or going for walks. She liked to visit an old field she had often played in growing up, a field with a single huge oak tree in it. She'd grown accustomed to writing in her journal every few days or whenever she felt she really ought to remember something specific. Today was one of those days: I never thought I'd be writing about this topic. I had long ago accepted that I was meant to be alone; I've never particularly needed anyone in my life. I mean, I have a handful of friends, but they alone satisfy my need for interaction. I'm nothing special… I guess what I'm getting at is that I never expected to have a strong romantic interest in someone. I had crushes growing up, but they all seemed petty compared to the books I've read, and so I just kind of let them go. But today. Today I met a boy named Felix. I wondered off during my shift at the library to read some more Oscar Wilde, but when I arrived at my typical reading spot- the one hidden window seat in the back where no one ever goes- there he was. He asked about my book and my job and then me in general; we talked for almost an hour. AN HOUR! I can barely keep a conversation going with my friends for more than a few minutes. It has to mean something, right? He has short, light brown hair and eyes that start out brown by the pupil, then are green in the middle, and then are blue on the outside. His eyes are so beautiful. *** Felix returned to the library the day after. Then he returned the day after that. And for three more consecutive days. He and Maxine chatted about their favorite books, laughed over scenarios they had come up with together, and genuinely got to know each other. Their minds seemed to work in exactly the same way. After a week of hanging around the library together, Maxine felt compelled to ask him to go for a walk with her sometime. She would write that night about how strange it was, to feel compelled to interact with a person instead of dreading it. This was her time, she would write, she was growing to know and express herself by becoming close to another person. It didn't make sense to her, but she wasn't fighting any part of it. She wrote: I've known Felix for a week now, and this seems so cliché, but I think I love him. I've steered clear of that word all my life, but I think this is it. When Felix and I talk, I don't feel like I need to plan out what I'm going to say next or how I'm going to leave the conversation. For the first time ever, I'm living in the moment. I trust him. And he says I am special. I don't know how to describe it- I guess for the first time, I feel like I'm worth something. It's like I've been a plain, white, puffy cloud stranded in a large blue sky all my life. Felix is the sun to my cloud. And now he's setting, melting into me, turning me into a spectrum of colors I didn't know I possessed. I'm neon orange and pastel pink and deep purple all at once, and it's all so new. My whole world is changing- the sky around me becomes a velvety navy and stars gleam with new light in every direction. This is getting cheesey. That's how I know I'm in love. *** On a sunny Saturday in early September, Maxine and Felix walked to Maxine's old field. It wasn't so cold that they need wear more than a sweater or light jacket. The trees in the town were beginning to show some of their fall colors. Without thinking, Maxine walked straight up to the oak and sat in the crook in the side of its ma**ive trunk immediately upon arriving to the field. Felix followed and sat haphazardly beside her, almost close enough for their shoulders to touch, but not quite. Maxine told him about all the times she'd come here as a kid. The stories just spilled out of her like never did with anyone else. She would sit under the tree and read and look up from her book to imagine the scenes playing out right there before her. Sometimes she'd even come up with her own stories and watch them in the field where the air, she felt, was heavy with imaginative potential. Felix scooted away from the trunk so he could look Maxine dead in the eye when he said, “You're pretty amazing.” Somehow Maxine managed to hold his beautiful gaze and not reveal any of the unrest that was exploding in her head and chest. “I think you are, too,” she replied, still managing to keep her facial expression under control, serene and sincere. “I think it's both pretty clear that we like each other,” Felix said, looking down then hesitating and glancing up to see Maxine nod, prodding him to finish his thought. “But I'm going away for school in less than a month.” Maxine nodded again. This wasn't news to her. Where was he going with this? “I don't think it'd be smart for us to start anything now, and I want to be upfront about that. I don't want to string you along at all. But at the same time, I'm not saying we don't have a future together.” Felix started absent-mindedly pulling at the gra**. “Something might happen in the future, or maybe nothing will. I don't know. Am I making any sense?” Maxine nodded again. Not only was Felix smart and beautiful and nice, he was gallant! He was remarkable! “Of course,” she said coolly, “Don't worry about me.” That night, Maxine recorded every single detail of the day she'd had. She filled up the pages of her journal to her heart's content, and her heart was so full. She took up three entire pages in doing so. But it was worth it; she'd want to remember this when she and Felix got married years from now. After he'd gone away and come back and they'd be together and everything would be wonderful. Maxine had never felt as happy or as self confident as she did that night. A few days later, Felix left. *** Almost a year pa**ed. Maxine thought of Felix every day. She would go sit under her tree and rehash the conversation they'd had there, feeling the rush of joy she'd felt all over again. She was amazing, he'd said. She'd imagine conversations they could have over mundane things, and yet they wouldn't be mundane at all when she had Felix there to talk with. She recorded these things in her journal. Maxine forwent writing about the other things in her life. She didn't write much about her work or her friends. She got in trouble with her friends when she failed to remember the drama that was happening in their lives. She was even penalized at work for not remembering to do the specific new tasks a**igned to her, despite the fact that she spent much of her time in the library writing in her journal. But these were all conscious choices. She wanted to be sure that she would remember every detail about the things that involved Felix so she could tell him everything that mattered when he came back. And then Felix came back. He walked into the library one late afternoon in August. Maxine had to triple check that the boy fit the description of Felix she had written in her journal before running up to him- she'd made the mistake of recognizing him in other random library-goers before. He wore a light leather jacket and a blue checkered, collared shirt tucked into slacks. Fancier than she remembered, but maybe she just hadn't written about his style of clothing in her journal as much as she had about everything else. “Felix?” She called from behind him. Felix turned to look at her. “Felix!” Maxine was elated. She'd waited so long to see Felix again, she had so much to share with him, she couldn't wait for the two of them to be together for real. And yet… “Yes?” Felix said, confounded. Maxine faltered. She was two feet from him. She had expected open arms, an embrace. He just stood there. No emotion. No recognition. Maxine had never thought- It had never occurred to her that he might- And yet it was written clearly in his expression, how clearly he had not bothered to write about Maxine in his journal. He had no recollection of her whatsoever. *** How many pages of her life had she wasted on him? How could he tell her she was amazing and not bother to remember her at all? How could her make her feel like she was actually worth love and companionship and think so little of it? Maxine had never been so embarra**ed in her life. All she wanted to do was erase the last year from her journal, to forget it completely. It was impossible. She would always remember and always feel the sting of the lack of recognition she received from Felix in return. Maxine wrote in her journal: ‘Nothing' and ‘hope' are exactly the same thing when you have nothing before you have something, because at that point, all you do is sit around hoping to feel anything. When you have this nothing, you dream about the good things you will feel when your time comes and that hope explodes in your chest and makes you think of nature scenes like a hummingbird s**ing nectar from a flower in full bloom or how the stars must look at night from the gra**y hill in an area where Starbucks and Walmart are scarily foreign concepts, or that special time of evening when the sun is setting at just the right angle and the trees look like they're on fire set in front of the unlit, dull, blue clouds above them. The nothing you have after having something that goes away, however, is just empty. *** It was familiar. The bark welcomed Maxine back like it was an old friend draping a blanket over her shoulders as she sat down. The bark was soft here, cork-like from all the sitting she'd done here before. She wondered what had happened here that she had failed to write about. Was she capable of doing to someone else what Felix had done to her? What Maxine did remember was the way the tree had looked back in the winter. Barren branches holding strong against the snow heaped upon them. And in the fall, all its leaves were yellow and she had sat where she always did and she had worn her yellow sweater that matched the color of the leaves by coincidence and she had looked out at the meadow before her and thought of all the possibilities it presented. She had been so young. That's why the memories were so clear. She had imagined a horse bounding over the hill right up to the lone tree. It would probably whiny and then subtly bow towards her, clearly a gesture that she was welcome to ride away on the horse's back. In such a situation, she had imagined, she would stand, slowly approach the horse, pet it, try to feed it some gra** that she would pull from the lush ground (it's not like there was anything else in the vicinity she could offer). Now she tried to imagine. She looked at where the horizon took its downturn and she tried to picture a wild horse rounding the hill and galloping towards her. Of course, she could come up with the picture in her mind, but now it lacked all the emotion, all the hope and happiness she had a**ociated with it. Sapped of emotion, nay, robbed of it, Maxine sat at the base of her tree. Who did she have to blame? No one, there was no one she could blame and so the blame fell to her, but was that right? It wasn't just. She looked up. During her younger years, there had been a robin's nest on one of the lower branches. She remembered it as clear as anything. Twigs meshed and bent together. The incessant squawking of the babies once they had hatched drove Maxine away from her tree for weeks. She didn't get to see them fly. They were gone when she came back. The branches were still too high to reach. There would never be any climbing of this tree done by humans. Only the bugs, birds, and squirrels were so privileged. All Maxine could do was look up and try to get a glimpse of sky through the thick foliage or look down. Gra**. Dirt. The occasional dandelion. Had she come here before now and after her last journal entry? There was no concrete way to know. Maybe she'd made this exact trek out here yesterday. Had she decided to be done with the journaling? Would every day from this point on be another day of internal debate and concluding not to write how she felt, concluding in a never ending spiral of the same feelings over and over? No, she needed to solidify her memory again. *** What Maxine was about to do had to be illegal. As far as she knew, no one had ever tried to forget anything. Ms. Norben had told the cla** there was no way to forget once it had been written inside, but all Maxine could think in that moment was that Ms. Norben had only been too cowardly to try. Blinded by an overwhelming amount of emotion, a whirlwind combination of determination, rage, and depression, Maxine stomped back to her house. Once inside, she was so close, she was compelled to run up the stairs into her room. Not bothering to close the door behind her, feeling no need to take any precautions at all, she dug the journal from her desk drawer and slammed it onto the surface of her desk. She picked up a thick, black Sharpie. Turning to the page where she wrote about first meeting Felix, Maxine used her Sharpie to black out every single word from that date until today. Gone where their good times at the library, gone were the times she had felt any sort of importance, gone were the imaginary conversations she had had with Felix while he was away, and gone was her knowledge of love and loss. Capping the marker, Maxine took a pen and wrote on the first available page: I'm shy. I'm not an athlete. I got good grades in school. I would like to work in a library. I have dark hair and freckles and hazel eyes. It takes me a long time to form thoughts and opinions and I often have difficulty finding words to describe how I feel. I am not extraordinary in any way. *** Maxine slept soundly at night.