And to an extent this is what they become. Our memory of experience, our individual pasts, are like trees fallen in a river. The current in that river is the passing of time. But as the current of time keeps flowing, the aging log begins to break down. Once-vivid impressions begin to rot.
Years run together.
Chunks of the log begin to vanish completely. Some of us realize, after being endlessly corrected, that there are portions of our pasts we can no longer weave into accurate narratives. Others of us realize, after sharing the same accurate narratives for decades, that we have somehow talked our allotment of stories to death, that no one listens any longer, that when we tell these old tales the room fills with a dark water and our listeners' eyes glaze. So we stop telling them. We let them decompose.