Happy Past

I miss high school. A batch mate of mine from high school just posted a whole album of his old high school pictures, particularly his section.

I began to feel and smell the stuffiness of the afternoon heat in the classrooms, the noise of the bell and people chattering, the afternoon sunlight and air that endlessly flows from the main entrance through the 1st floor corridor all the way down to the huge ramp by the chapel. The familiar faces, which surprised me after seeing how they all look now in Facebook, the noise or the tension of the classrooms that you pass by along the corridors, the uniforms that we wore, the class clowns, "trouble makers", school crushes, etc.

I so thank God for memories! And I'm happy that I pretty much have a lot of them with me. Just the other day, I was thinking about my childhood which I spent in Jeddah. Now, high school. It does feel nice to have something to go back to or look back at during "lonely" times. It reminds you of how you were happy back then.  There are moments when these memories remind you of how you should have done this, or shouldn't have done that... And because of all that, you now have to tell yourself how to make the best of the NOW.  That you now have the option to make the best out of the present, so that you don't have the WHAT IFs in the future.

I used to be the type who always wanted to go back in the past and torture myself with all the what ifs.  I never really liked the present, which was why I would run back into my memories and "re-live" my happier and younger years. It's not bad actually.  The bad part of it was that I didn't have the gratitude of the present time. I would always wallow in regret and get really sad and frustrated.  Sometimes, it included envy of those younger ones who are actually "living" their lives the way I would have wanted to.

But now that I have better logic (compared to what I had back then), I still love looking back at my happy past, except that I now also want create more happy pasts or even happier pasts for my future.

I love the past, really. I love MY past. I may not have appreciated them as much back then, but I don't want that to happen anymore. I try to make the most of my present life now.

This is the main reason why God gave me a huge room in my heart for memories.  Living is making more good memories.