memorialize

When you memorialize something, you honor it or do something so it will be remembered. If you want to remember a summer trip taken with friends, you could make a photo album full of the pictures you took to memorialize it.

The word memorialize often is used in relation to someone or something that has passed away or even to a group of connected individuals who have perished. You might see a monument, for example, that memorializes victims of an earthquake, meaning pays tribute to them. You can also memorialize someone in a speech, meaning you tell about the person's life and describe how he or she has affected others.

***My psychiatrist told me today that I am memorializing the individual this blog is about. I add positive attributes to this individual, in my mind, that may not be based in reality. He is not necessarily the perfect man for me. He has shown that time and time again, through his Facebook posts. Yes, he is a doctor. Yes, he surfs. Yes, he may look like the type of guy I am most attracted to, but he is not all that I make him to be, and he is not "perfect for me." 

He was too immature in college for a relationship. He never even pursued a real friendship with me. He never wanted to get married right after college and start having children. He never wanted to marry me, at least. That does not align with what I wanted or my core values. 

He traveled, he partied, and studied, while I was busy getting married and having children. While in medical school, he dated much younger, college girls. He got serious late in life and eventually became a doctor. He was subsequently snagged by one of those much younger, sorority girls. 

He is 44 years old and may never have children. I think he is a 44 year old child himself, so maybe that is the best thing for him, to not have children. I guess, I needed to be talked to rationally, by my psychiatrist, today to stop romanticizing and memorializing a man who is not perfect for me or better than any other man I have met. He is just some guy from college.