Just Because.

“If you’re from Africa, why are you white?”

-Mean Girls

 

 

There are moments here and there where nostalgia seems to take over my being.  Usually on my most exhausted days, where I can hardly believe society considers me an adult, nostalgia taps me on the shoulder.  And I always cannot help but answer.  It is at my most exhausted state that I find myself most pensive.  Thoughts of who I was, who I am, who I will become swim around my mind in an almost relentless fashion.  Who are you?  Who were you?  Who shall you be?  And amidst this quasi philosophical mind game I engage myself in, I always discover the very same thing.  Then it isn't so much about me, but, about you.  You who were, are and will be at one point or another a part of my life.

 

You see, when nostalgia calls and demands I take a look at my life I answer.  And, usually, more often than not I succumb to all its wants.  I find that photographs usually put my mind at ease.  I scroll through album after album reminiscing over mornings, days and nights.  I can recall precisely every single moment before and after.  Photographs are beautiful memories frozen in time.  Photographs are oblivious.  Photographs are not concerned with whether or not you find joy nor pain.  They are just simple reminders.

 

Yesterday I was feeling particularly exhausted.  Mentally drained, so-to-speak.  Perhaps concluding John Green's "Looking for Alaska" could be to blame.  Whether or not that was the culprit I found myself in that nostalgic state of being.  And I came across this photograph hidden away in an old photo album.  Instantaneously I could hear the laughter of four girls enjoying their evening.  It was comforting, soothing, simple and complex.  Because the photo did not signify only joy, but sadness too.  A representation of a different me, a different you, a different us.  You feel it too.  I know you do.  And, so, from four remains three. 

 

And I've forgotten.  We've forgotten the what and the how and the who, just like time would have it.  Because that is just-the-way-it-goes.  Time goes on, life continues and we move on.  Simple facts of humanity. 

 

So, sure, you see two girls and a good time captured eternally.  But, we, the girl and I, we see a void.  A void,  once remembered and now forgotten.

 

xoxo