I’ve often been told that I have a good memory. 

It all started in middle school, when I first discovered the joys of compiling a mental thesaurus. I called a friend’s mum impetuous when she bemoaned the interminable wait between tiger sightings on our safari in Ranthambore. I thought her grimace belied more fascination than disgust, but you can never be too sure with these things. I’ve received the same compliment at Yale, but more often than not from friends who are impressed by my remembrance of the name of their high school or their brother’s favorite ice cream flavor. 

I have my memory to thank for my place at this school. My passions manifest in my recollections: if I can recite Macbeth’s tomorrow and tomorrow (and tomorrow) soliloquy or draw the chemical structure of doxycycline, it is a privilege afforded to me by a memory that has always served me well. 

Which is why it is especially difficult to admit that this memory is failing, or at the least, grossly inadequate. On my first day at Yale, I wrote my first-ever piece for the News. I described my sister’s move-in day at college and the “flashes” of memory through which I remember them. Today, they are the same flashes of memory through which I remember my own. The irony is not lost on me.

I remember the shape of the Ben Franklin courtyard, angular and defamiliarized and far more formidable than the one I have spent the last two years walking around. I remember the orange shirt that I wore, the mini-fridge that my dad spent two hours disinfecting, the tears I shed when my parents left after their designated time and the episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender I watched in bed that night.

If my verbal portraiture of even that momentous day is fragmented, you can imagine how splintered my memory of that semester is. And the spring that followed. I had some of the best times of my life in that year but the songs, dances and conversations have blurred together into dabs of impasto on an uneven canvas. 

A friend reminded me last week that we have just two years left at Yale — a situation that I’m sure feels more acute for juniors and seniors whose college lives were completely upended by a global pandemic. I am constantly told that college is one of the more special periods of my life. And I believe it. But how do we reconcile the glamour of these four years with a memory that is unable to fully capture their magic; am I to accept that our greatest moments here are inevitably ephemeral, imparting joy, wisdom and solace that is contingent, that can never be experienced again? 

Time, be not proud, nor canst thou kill me yet. As much as I’d like to channel my inner John Donne and rail against the anisotropism of time, Nature or death, I cannot. So, I must acquiesce to the confines of my mind, and find ways to preserve the moments that matter. 

Sometimes, even my best attempts seem futile. I was confronted by failure when I opened my journal from the fall — a valiant effort for a month, never to be revisited again and confined to the pages of history. I’ve always been partial to pictures, videos and in the direst cases, Facebook memories on my wall from a trip I took six years ago. And while pictures are a treasure trove of memories, associations, even they can’t capture every moment. A morning visit to the farmer’s market, an evening walk down Hillhouse Avenue in the freezing cold, a night spent reading each other’s favorite essays. 

It seems that my answer lies beyond the boundaries of modern photographic technology. That my problem isn’t my inability to remember, but my inability to accept. Time, change and movement are all challenging concepts, especially in a period during which the stakes are so high. Perhaps all it takes is a little bit of faith, that even when I don’t remember every meaningful conversation, every party, every spontaneous bike ride, they have left an indelible, albeit invisible, imprint on my being. 

The best way to memorialize our time here, then, is in our friendships, our newfound aspirations and our changed convictions. Photo albums, video compilations and growing book shelves are the perfect reminders of the people and lessons we learned, but they are profoundly dependent on time spent reminiscing. They depend on us taking the time 10 years in the future, to look through our pictures from October 2021 and smile at the memories we made in a month. They require us to reconnect with old friends and laugh about the trips we took together.

If I remember home through 10 recurring memories, it is only in writing this piece that I opened the floodgates to 100 more. As I indefatigably document moments spent here, immortalized in writings, musings and pictures, I have faith that someday I will see the infinite ways in which they have shaped my life.