Selective Memory

Well after laser eye surgery, a new computer, and a jaunt in Alaska, I finally find myself with time to write once again.
I've been thinking lately a lot about how irritating it is to be forced to relive memories against my will. Specifically, I find myself wishing that I was able to select whether certain sights, sounds, and smells would evoke recollections of the past or not.
For example, I find it very unnerving that anytime I hear the song "Leaving on a Jet Plane" I am most unpleasantly transported back to a moment in time I would rather forget. Suddenly I can hear my ex boyfriend Ben singing the song to me in one of the most pitiful moments of our relationship. It was right before he left for Honduras for two weeks. The song was a desperate ploy to save a relationship that was damaged beyond repair. The attempt was supposed to be sweet, but could not make up for the previous year and a half of arguements, sadness, and abuse we had bestowed on each other. It was a moment where I saw with vivid clarity how two people had never been more wrong for each other. It was also embaressing and akward because I was so far past being able to ever look at Ben in a romantic way again while he was still blatantly refusing to give up on us. I would pay to get rid of this memory, and many others from our realtionship, yet I find that anytime the song comes on the car radio it always commanderes my mind without consent and is about as welcome as George Bush is in France.
So I can't help but think sometimes that it would be a blessing to select what images were allowed to be conjured up in reaction to certain things I can not always avoid.
Would that was the only irritating memory I was forced to relive against my will but there are others.
There's also the time I was at work, happily minding my own buisness as I put away shoes, when suddenly a guy walked by wearing the same cologne my ex, Jason, used to wear. This provoked another set of memories which I would prefer not to dwell on both because I am happily married, and because Jason represents a problematic point in my life filled with arguements with Ben, confusion about what I wanted from life, and the added burden of everyone telling me how wrong Jason was for me. Yet nevertheless, everytime I would suceed in banishing such thoughts, Mr. Eau de Ex would walk by and trigger another bought of re-experienced memories.
The absolute worst one though is the song "Proud to Be an American" which was played incessantly during my father's abscence in the Gulf War when I was only eight. This is particuarly painful as it brings back vivid recollections of how scared I was while my father was away, how sad and frustrated my mother was during that time, and the constant fear I had of my dad not making it back alive. And every year, like it or not, I am forced to view all these things in my mental theater at least once as the song has become completely unavoidable on the 4th of July. (Seriously, they play it everywhere).
If I have to retain these melancholy memories, I would at least like complete control over when and where I choose to relive them. Being forced to think back on things that distress me during a road trip with my husband, at work, or during the annual 4th fireworks is not only frustrating, it's unnerving.
I suppose in the end that's life though. Without the bitter we wouldn't know the sweet. Still, I can't help but occasionally think that maybe it would be better for all concerned if I was able to selectivly remember when, where, and what I want. It would certainly make me much more amiable and far less disgruntled. ;)