Memories

I could deal with looking at your new pictures. They show me a different man from the one I've known, someone I hardly know anymore. But coming across an old photo, it was jarring. I paused and froze in place, my heart rushing to my throat and choking me until I realized I've held my breath. There you were, looking ten years younger, and looking at you made the memories rush in so fast, I could not have prepared for it. There were photos of you before you knew me, and photos of you after. One came close to when we would have already met and it filled me with so much pain to see you just as I remembered you before. And then, when I could breathe and let go of everything that was gripping me, my heart expanded and came to terms again. It was really a different time, wasn't it? Perhaps a once in a lifetime moment where you find a place in the world that makes sense and reality is nothing but that person with you. That was what that time was like for me. Every experience, every feeling, was centered around nothing and no one but you. And so perhaps it consumed me in ways that I will never understand. And in ways that took about a decade to get over. Because I can let go now, I can breathe. But because it was so important back then, I will always remember. I wasn't the happiest girl then. I was insecure and filled with much of nothing that I had no idea of half of what I was doing. So perhaps things have a reason for unfolding. And things have a way of working out and falling into its right place. You are there, somewhere. And I am here. We are linked by a past we can't seem to let go, and yet I have the surest feeling that where we are now is where we should be. Thank you for the memories.