Sweet Sweet Memory

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of the sunset and try to burn the image into my mind like a scar. It's a visual that's too magnificent for a picture to ever understand. I've tried capturing those images on my camera to have frozen in time forever but it's never quite the same. Every time I capture that kind of image it reminds me that the memory is so much sweeter than the real thing. Sometimes I think life is that way.

First kisses, old flames, family holidays, the list goes on and the memories remain so much sweeter than the real thing was or is. There's no way my first kiss was as insanely romantic as my memory tries to frame it. And family holidays are never the superb and joyous occasion they are supposed to be. 

I always feel a lingering holiday tension from trying to make everything perfect for everyone. And every year that tension ends up in a little pile of disappointment right next to the disgarded wrappings and christmas bows of another holiday gone by.

And then I remind myself that the holidays are not the Hallmark cards the retailers force upon you. Nothing goes exactly as planned, nobody has a perfect family or a perfect Christmas and I shouldn't feel bad that mine's not perfect either.  The holidays are what you make them. Stop worrying about reaching the impossible standards of a picture perfect holiday and just let your holiday be what it's going to be.

The memory will be so much sweeter that way.