Today is the day that we’re living in. It soon slips away and becomes yesterday and yesterdays soon becomes part of another time.
Time creeps upon us all and takes us through so many journeys. We live so many lives in our one life, it’s quite amazing. We start off as innocent infants looking at the world like it’s anew – learning in the lap of love. Life is beautiful and shielded – our parents guard us from the harshness of the world, giving us a fairytale land to live in.
Slowly we morph into an awkward age, where life starts seeping through the guarded nest and you enter a world of confusion. Realizing you’re one of a kind in a sea of millions – discovering your identity, experimenting with new choices and in the end starting to realize what you believe in and what you don’t.
The thing is, with every chapter we are living a life we will never get back to again. In that life, we grow accustomed to our surrounding, our homes, our friends and faces around us. We live that life and can’t imagine it any other way. And then it suddenly all changes. The changes seem overwhelming at first- we’re unsure if we can make it on our own, if we can make the right choices. And then we soon get so carried away in the sea of change that we almost forget what being anchored felt like.
Then a time comes while you’re drifting in the sea when you meet a memory from an old life, your heart immediately responds. Your mind takes you away to that moment – and you’re surprised how far you’ve come. It could be as simple as an old outfit in which you could never imagine the “new” you in, an old photograph, your child giving you advice and nurturing you, and you smile remembering teaching them the same words that they use now flawlessly. An old friend who talks of things you did and said and you almost don’t remember. And then the rush of memory comes – the rush of desire to suddenly go back or shy away from that time.
We disassociate ourselves subconsciously from where we are and imagine that life – the desire to reconcile the two becomes overwhelming and suddenly we want it all. There are things you always miss - like your fathers voice, your moms cooking and warmth, your all night talks with your sister... While it is kind of sad to realize you can’t have the carefree days of not worrying about anything other than what to do with your best friend on a sunny day – I think aging is a very beautiful process. It’s like leaving a mark of yourself in every life you’ve lived. A reminder of how far you’ve come – how many lives you’ve touched. All the new roles you’ve assumed – from a child, a sibling, a friend, a spouse, to a parent to a grandparent. Always added on, never removed…these consistent relationships are the threads that tie all the endless lives together. A bouquet of sentiment that grows in your arms – a bouquet which has brought you to where you are, to this life you recognize – this day – today.
Yesterday is today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream.
