Tuesday, April 13, 2004
i threw away my past during the weekend
coming home from school everyday in my late primary-secondary education years, i'd inevitably find at least two notes that were passed between me and another person (or groups of people), apparently. i'd maybe go through these notes one more time, then stuff them into a drawer and forget about them. however, this drawer came to be the repository of not just these notes, but full-page letters, cards, and other things that i'd liken to 'emotional money'- because they seem to mean a lot more than the paper they're written on.
anyway, i was facing papers collected through the course of nine years when i finally decided (with persistent prodding from my mom) to clean that drawer out. and poring through them, i unearthed snapshots of lives that i was in constant touch with; people who shared joys, dreams, fears, (insert another tired cliche that people could share through writings here), and what-not. dozens of "we're just friends", "just wanted to say hi"s, and tons more "thank you"s scrawled on notebook paper, yellow pad, and the ubiquitous brown recycled paper poured out, passing through my eyes again after years of being kept, forgotten in the minds of those who wrote and those for whom they were written.
and it may have been the last i'd see or remember of many of those events. i needed to clean the drawer out, granted, but maybe it was also time to get rid of those remnants of the past and move along. because regardless of whether the adage about people changing is true or not, the truth is that relationships do. friends become better friends, who become lovers, who become friends again, who become enemies, (and all other various combinations (as opposed to permutations... okay, i digress!) and all too many of these relationships have long gone by, not by anything other than natural progression of time; whether it can be helped or not really doesn't count, sad to say.
so i've thrown away some links to the past, the ties that bind that may already be too frayed for holding on to- the emotional money i had so easily collected, and just as easily used up, hoping that i can rely on how well my mind serves me.
and let memories be all that's saved.
coming home from school everyday in my late primary-secondary education years, i'd inevitably find at least two notes that were passed between me and another person (or groups of people), apparently. i'd maybe go through these notes one more time, then stuff them into a drawer and forget about them. however, this drawer came to be the repository of not just these notes, but full-page letters, cards, and other things that i'd liken to 'emotional money'- because they seem to mean a lot more than the paper they're written on.
anyway, i was facing papers collected through the course of nine years when i finally decided (with persistent prodding from my mom) to clean that drawer out. and poring through them, i unearthed snapshots of lives that i was in constant touch with; people who shared joys, dreams, fears, (insert another tired cliche that people could share through writings here), and what-not. dozens of "we're just friends", "just wanted to say hi"s, and tons more "thank you"s scrawled on notebook paper, yellow pad, and the ubiquitous brown recycled paper poured out, passing through my eyes again after years of being kept, forgotten in the minds of those who wrote and those for whom they were written.
and it may have been the last i'd see or remember of many of those events. i needed to clean the drawer out, granted, but maybe it was also time to get rid of those remnants of the past and move along. because regardless of whether the adage about people changing is true or not, the truth is that relationships do. friends become better friends, who become lovers, who become friends again, who become enemies, (and all other various combinations (as opposed to permutations... okay, i digress!) and all too many of these relationships have long gone by, not by anything other than natural progression of time; whether it can be helped or not really doesn't count, sad to say.
so i've thrown away some links to the past, the ties that bind that may already be too frayed for holding on to- the emotional money i had so easily collected, and just as easily used up, hoping that i can rely on how well my mind serves me.
and let memories be all that's saved.
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