As you get older; you've probably noticed that you tend to forget things. You'll be talking with somebody at a party, and you'll know that you know this person, but no matter how hard you try, you can't remember his or her name. This can be very embarassing, especially if he or she turns out to be your spouse.

I believe we forget who we are over time, and in our state of forgetfulness we struggle and employ all kinds of learned behaviors that don't necessarily help us or bring us happiness. Each of us has a self that exists undamaged and whole, from the moment we are born waiting to be reclaimed.

I still forget, sometimes, that I am no longer 12 years old.

Why do I not forget?

When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it.

I do remember, and then when I try to remember, I forget.

When you are old you can look back and see yourself when you are young. It is almost like looking down from heaven. And you see yourself as a young woman, just a big girl really, half awake to the world. You see yourself happy, holding in your arms a good, decent, gentle, beloved young man with the blood keen in his veins, who before long is going to disappear, just disappear, into a storm of hate and flying metal and fire. And you just don't know it.

Isn’t it delightful to forget how old we are?

We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were.

Some people will say that memory fades away as the years pass. Of course it does if you don't exercise it or aren't very bright to begin with. — How to grow old: ancient wisdom for the second half of life.

"The more you are able to completely withdraw all your powers and forget all things — along with whatever images they have left in you — the farther you will travel away from created things and their images, and the closer and more receptive you will be to this birth. Were you to forget everything completely and be unaware of them, you would lose even the awareness of your own body, just as it occurred with St. Paul when he said, ". . . whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth. . ." (2 Corinthians 12:2)"

There are things you forget naturally-computer passwords, your father's continuing relationship with life-and then there are things you can't forget that you wish you could.

To know yourself is to forget yourself.

You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.