Too Close

Sometimes, you have to be far enough away from a great idea to let it come alive on paper.  Being too close to a new idea can cause you to hold onto it too tight, hold onto the "truth" of it too tight.  I've been trying to write the story of burying my grandmother's ashes for over a decade now, and I think I've finally forgotten enough of the actual details that I can write it without agonizing over the proper chronology, over who said exactly what.  The facts of the story had long been getting in the way of its essence--the love, the humor, a story of my grandmother, my mother, and her sisters, and me getting to witness it all. 

I've found this with a lot of my writing pieces, even when it's not a "memoir" piece.  A little time away gives me a more ruthless set of editing eyes,the ability to shape and fine-tune what might otherwise be an ungainly swathe of excess.  A little objectivity lets me get to the meat of the story, to revive the original creative impulse that drove me to write in the first place. 

What do you think?  Do your memoirs need to be as accurate as possible in order to access the truth of the story?  Can our "infallible" memories ever be completely truthful?