Ramble on Nostalgia...

Sometimes, I feel like I live in the past too much. But I also tend to think of it this way: I reflect on my past trying to decipher the lessons from my experiences. But at other times, I'm doing neither of these things. I'm just thinking about it and smiling a hell of a lot. My friend called me up the other day to remind me of a specific incident that happened in tenth grade and we couldn't help but laugh over it for a good half hour. That was literally seven years ago!

What with friends getting engaged and married, siblings growing up, graduation coming close and people moving off in different directions, I've been in the nostalgic mode a lot more than usual lately. I've dug through my year books, sifted through pictures and videos and read through past diary entries. It's a very a satisfactory feeling, and I'm going to attempt to describe this feeling as best as I can, although I'm pretty sure that I won't be able to capture it fully in words.

I was sitting there on my bed with my past spread out before me. I had my eyes open, but I was dreaming. No, I wasn't dreaming. It was more of recreating an event in my mind with a glazed look on my face. Is that what dreaming is? Then yes, I guess I was dreaming, but it seemed so real! Like it happened yesterday! I could literally see the people before me and I could see myself clearly. I was six years younger, naive and oblivious to lots of things around me. I immediately reverted to an image of myself ten years younger, then four years younger, then eight years younger. But the images weren't a blur in my mind, they were really vivid. It was like I was flipping through an imaginary album in my head, despite the fact that I had actual pictures spread out before me. I wasn't sure whether I was sad or happy. Was I sad because all these things were the past, and I had nothing but the unknown future ahead of me? Or was I happy that I actually had such amazing memories to look back on?

I could taste a smell and I could see a voice. I could feel an image and I could smell a sight. Does that make sense? It did in my head. The transitions between one chapter of my life to the next chapter were coherent. It is a smoothly flowing story with people entering and leaving, but the ones that I've always loved and cared for staying no matter what.

But one thought struck me as unusual... I would think that as time goes by, situations change and with them, people change. (To reiterate the conversation I had with two of my friends...) But the one type of alteration I cherish the most is the one where neither the people nor the situation changes, but just time. The distinction between 'then' and 'now' makes all the difference. Is that even possible? But I've encountered situations where it seems possible... At least to me. And it's not like I appreciate that difference, nor do I despite it. I just find it odd...

Is it true that people don't change? Is it true that the changing of time is the same thing as changing of a circumstance? But that doesn't make sense to me... I know I've gone in circles and have ended up nowhere. And I've also lost track of my initial aim which was to describe my feelings of nostalgia and I've rambled on about time and change. I'm actually surprised you ended up reading all of this!

But in an attempt to revert back to my original goal: After flipping back and forth between images, and coming upon hindrances where I don't seem to understand the relation between time, change and people, I ended up at a blank spot in my brain. It was like a white sheet of paper, which was waiting to be splashed on with colors of more memories. And hopefully, a couple of years from now, I'll have more to write on tangents about things under the pretext of nostalgia. And maybe then, I won't end up nowhere, but somewhere. Cheers! Here's to the new people in my life, to my dreams, to my family, to my wishes, to my friends, to my goals and to life!