“The bittersweet between my teeth. Trying to find the in-between. Fall back in love eventually…”

 

 

If I was to stop you from what you were doing at the moment. Offer you a pen and a paper. Ask you to list down all the memorable moments in your life starting from the most memorable. Which one would be your first? Would it be:

1. Your sweet sixteenth?
2. Your eighteenth?
3. Your twenty-first?
4. Your Graduation ceremony?
5. Your high school prom?
6. Your Graduation from College/University?
7. The moment you were proposed?
8. Your wedding day?
9. The moment you held your child for the first time?
10. Your child’s first birthday?

The list can go on and on and on. These are the most common and paradoxically special moments I could think of from the top of my head. Maybe you’re looking at that list and going, “Yeah! one of those would definitely be my number one!” or perhaps you’re a bit like me and sitting there shaking your head saying, “Nah! None of those are even close to what my most memorable moment was!”. There are two reasons why none of those moments would be on my list:

Numero Uno: From number 2 till 10 have not happened yet. I am 2 months away from number 2 *Insert happy dance here* and three months away from 4 and 5 *insert another happy dance here*. So you can probably guess that number 6-10 is not happening anytime soon and I can’t put them on my list. Having said that, some years from now, maybe some of those events will be on my list. Who knows.

Numero Dos is going to be the reason I’m writing this post.

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When I was five, life was about learning how to tie your shoe lace. It was about aiming to eat an ice cream cone without creating a messy ice-cream beard around your mouth. It was about learning to balance your self on a bicycle [which I never learned ]. It was about going swimming on the weekends and rearranging the doll house. Back then, the biggest challenge was making friends at school. The biggest thrill was starting school for the first time. Life seemed to always revolved around the toys, candy, cartoons, the birthday party and birthday presents. The biggest lesson to learn was to share. To say Please and Thank you. The focus was to unleash your creativity. Learn how to hand write. Learn how to draw shapes. Learn how to stay within the boundaries when coloring. Learn how to smile. Learn how to laugh. Learn how to just be happy. You’re probably wondering, Why is this girl always writing about childhood. First this and then that and now this? The truth is, that these little bits and pieces of childhood all collage together to be the number one on my list.

When I or maybe even you, boarded the Grow up-mature-experience express, we left behind those little things. And like a picture looks faint from a distance, so do these memories. That is because, we get too caught up remembering other special moments like ones from the list of ten. Those moments are special no doubt! However, the collage of the small and basic things you learn as a five year old just prove that “it is the little things sometimes that really count”. My life between six to seventeen had some really memorable moments too. Some of which aren’t too pretty to picture but shaped shaped my identity nonetheless. But those moments are acknowledged by everyone because of their huge impact. Parents, friends, sibling will all remember my Graduation and my first birthday. I can count on them to capture those moments into still frames and stage them in the living room and bedrooms. But It’s the thought of the faded memories that formed twelve years ago which draw a strange smile across my face. Yet, sometimes the smile fades away as quickly as fog on a mirror.

The truth is that I will most likely add Graduation to my list of memorable moments. Three months from now when I walk across the stage in front of thousands of people in my gown and tasselled cap and receive my diploma, it will be captured by many cameras. It will be the appreciation of success. It will remind me that I still have a long road ahead to, through and out of university. It will be a moment to hear the sound of cheers and applauses and watch the sea of flashing camera lights and proud smiles. But when you turn your head and look at the picture from a different angle, it will also be a longer distance away from the faint memories that date back to twelve years ago. Such thoughts about the past and the future linger around in my head 24/7. It eventually leads to the long nights of lying in bed taking trips inside my head. Going back and forth between the most wonderful past and the most thrilling upcoming future. The first steps into a KG class and the final steps off the stage on Graduation day play like a film in my head that is on a constant playback. All the while a swarm of butterflies seem to be partying it up in my stomach.

I guess it is just one of those times when being in the present is like standing on an edge, or crossing a narrow and unstable bridge. To just live in the moment and enjoy what’s left of the high school career because ‘you will never be younger than you already are’ is much harder than it looks. The fear of falling and the fear of letting go both play with you at the same time and the fun doesn’t last very long does it?

Thanks for reading!
Yours Truly

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Title: Song ‘Young blood’ by The naked and Famous