Burial Backfire

"That was a long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out."

The above lines are from the book I've just read, The Kite Runner. It might just be the best individual book I've come across till now. Well, I can't say that I completely disagree with those lines. The thing is, you CAN bury the past, to an extent. You can bury all that is tangible - photos, objects, surroundings. You can get rid of certain things, distance yourself from a few others. It is the intangible that is tricky to deal with.

Memories. That's what they are in a vast sense. But, whoever said you cannot shove memories away and leave them to fade out gradually? You can bury memories too, but once again, to an extent.
There are entities, intangible ones, that you possess and that is yours to give away when you choose to. Along the way, you end up spending these, distributing them at particular points. But, the thing is, these are such that cannot be restored, cannot be retrieved. Once given, they are gone. You cannot regain them, you cannot take them back to give out at a different occasion. The simplest, and perhaps the least personal, example of such an entity is time. You never get it back. These entities (or loss thereof) are what make memories so recurring, so vivid.

For instance, you are doing a good job in burying the past. And then, suddenly, you reach a significant point in the present and you feel that it seems to be the perfect place to plant one of those landmarks, those milestones, only to realize that it is no longer among your possessions. You have already given it away, at a far less appropriate, perhaps even WRONG, instant. The realization causes your mind to drift back towards that time, to wander around the contours of the past that you have been burying so successfully. And it begins to claw its way out.