Yesterday I spent some time thinking about “the past.”
For some reason the past always seems to be filled with more fondness than the present. It doesn’t matter which past it is. My theory is that because years are condensed into a small portion of my memory I only have room for things I want to remember and those are either pure fun or pure sadness. Things happening now are spread out over a longer period of time… I guess it’s like defragmenting your computer. There are huge gaps between the important information in the present so it takes awhile to recall the good times. When the memory has been defragmented the memories are more concentrated in the area they are given. There is a higher joy/pain to space ratio.
I always seem to want to go back to “the past.” I want to revisit those feelings. I want physically be in the memories I hold in my mind. I try to do that but as we all know, “you can never go back.” And I know this. I know it will never be the same again, but I think I’d still like to try and create some new memories while I’m at it.
Anyway, when I think about my life I usually break it up into block of time defined by what I was doing and who I was spending the most time with – as people usually do with their lives (when thinking about them I mean… theres no use trying to save this sentence, it’s totally FUBAR).
There’s my early high school phase when I had just started high school, after I had left my summer boarding school in Taiwan. My new friends approached me about depression and counseling because I would cry at all hours of the day, at lunch, in the locker room, in class. Yeah, I probably do have mild depression, but nothing I can’t handle on my own, or so I like to think. Having a chemical imbalance would certainly explain a lot.
Then after I met Daniel life was different. Those are the Daniel Years because we spent almost everyday together. I’ve spent the last four years trying to forget those previous four years so I can’t really say I remember much about it. Some anecdotes here and there, a few frames of film are still salvageable in that movie, but not really any succinct memories. There’s proof of those years in a box somewhere, I can go back when I feel like going back.
The last two Daniel Years overlapped into my I lived in San Francisco Years. Again, my new friends thought I needed counseling, I probably did, yadda yadda. This was my first time living on my own. I think I grew more in these two years than I could in 10. It was full of new experiences. It was the loneliest and saddest two years of my life so far, but I still think back on them fondly.
This is the past I was thinking about last night. I want to go back, even if it sucks.