Memories are terrible triggers. Old photographs, old letters, anything from the past that we hold so dear and refuse to release, are terrible triggers. On nights I cannot sleep, I scroll through old photos of myself and the people that made up my world. And I always end up crying because things aren't the way they are anymore. I am a sentimental junkie, but sometimes a cynic, but I am a romantic and idealist, as well as a very angry realist. I always tell others that some people are here only for a season, to serve some sort of purpose, but their purpose was never to stay in your life forever. This is something we need to deal with. I mean, I look at my secondary school friends and how close we used to be, but I am not sore that we are leading completely different lives, with very little interaction. And then there are more recent people that have walked away, and I still feel sore. It's not anger, nor is it bitterness, it's just a tender spot you refuse to revisit but every time you do you can't help but ache. Ache for what is lost. I also keep whining about claiming my body back, looking at how thick my hair used to be, how healthy my skin used to be, how functional this body used to be. But why? Why go back? Is it not in our nature to progress? I love Fel's tweet about the past, and it kind of jolted me back. She wrote, had a nightmare from the past, but realised that now, I'm in the future. Ain't that a gem?
Just like how I am grateful for my secondary school days and I look back on them with sweetness, one day I will be able to look back to the recent loss and treat them as a good portion of my life well-lived. With no ounce of pain. And just like how everyone's features change as they grow older, I will also change after treatment is over. I will not look like how I used to, I never will, but that's the same with everybody. We grow. Never live in spaces that no longer exist. Never give your heart to people who no longer exist. If all the cells in our bodies are completely different in seven years, if our beliefs and values continue to alter and take shape as we grow older, if the people in our lives come and go and influence us in various ways as time passes, we aren't really the same people as we were before, are we? And those that we once loved are no longer the people we fell in love with. And the wounds on your flesh will heal, and the bitterness in your heart (I hope) will heal, and life continues. Everyone says that life is short, but truth be told, this is the longest thing we would ever experience. In eternity, time as we know it will cease. We will no longer live by this singular timeline, frame by frame, second by second. So truly, this is all there is for us and time. Our relationship with time will cease, who knows when. So stop cheating on the present by craving the past or the future. This is both the past and the future. What matters is what we do now, with whom, and the kind of people we become from this present. When your body is in the present but your mind in the past/future, you split yourself in so many ways that all you feel is ache. A desire you can not fulfil because we are at the mercy of this singular timeline.
Stop craving the past and the future, it will do you no good. Immerse yourself in the present, learn and grow from the past, work hard for the future. You cannot live in a space that does not exist. You cannot give your heart to someone that no longer exists.