Memories, like most things, are often best left alone before you end up ruining them.

This has happened to me several times just this year and it sucks.

Starts out when someone or something reminds you of a television show, or song, or band, cartoon, or movie from your childhood, youth or teen years.  Of course at that point you start thinking "dang I really wish I could see / hear / watch that again."  This in turn leads to Google which almost always leads to either Wikipedia or Youtube.

So at this point you're all excited cause you found it.  But, when you finally do watch and or listen to whatever it is that you remember as being a highlight of your past, you sort of go blank.  You want to get all giddy and be all excited.  But you're not.  Instead you just sit there staring blankly.  When it's over you end up wondering what the heck it was you ever liked about that.  It totally ruins what was once a happy memory.  Granted this doesn't happen all the time.  More often than not you do enjoy watching, listening, experiencing this memory from the past.  But, there are those few annoying times when you just kill part of your childhood without even trying.

Here's a good example.  Earlier this year I was trying to remember this cartoon that I loved when I was really young.  It wasn't a full cartoon.  It was one of those little 5 min. cartoons that was part of a half hour cartoon.  There were a lot of those back then, Warner Bros. had Looney Toons, there was Tom and Jerry, The Pink Panther, lots of cartoons were in that format at the time.  All I could remember was that it was this messed up shark and his sidekick was a catfish.  My best friend who can find anything online managed to locate an episode of Misterjaw and Catfish from the Pink Panther cartoon.  I was excited.  Then I watched it.  I kinda forced out a chuckle midway, as if trying to make myself like it again.  But it sucked lol.  Animation was bad, humor was awful, and it had that annoying 70's fake audience laughing every few seconds.  I couldn't believe what a let down it was.  I remember being so excited when this would come on tv.  Clearly a memory that should have been left as a memory.

Another example that's happened repeatedly is music.  In particular, Motley Crue.  In the late 80's and early 90's I was like their biggest fan.  I had all their albums, posters, t-shirts, magazines.  I LOVED them.  Many times over the past few years I have tried to listen to them.  Something will come along and make me remember them.  I can barely get through one song before I change it.  I still love them...  But...  I just don't know.  And there's at least a dozen other bands that fall in this same category.

Television, this is a big one.  There are a lot of regular (non cartoon) shows that I use to love and have seen online and just couldn't believe how amazingly awful they were.  The list here is far too long to even start.

I think the next time I remember something that I use to love, I'm just gonna try to think of something else and let it stay as a "memory of something that I loved" and not become a "why the heck did I ever like that."