future

But I don't want things to change, she says, sobbing.
The torn linoleum listens patiently, places a kind hand upon her shoulder. Her petulant crescendo gives way to a whimper, her voice thin with disbelief. The washing machine whirs and hums in the background, uncomfortably shifting its weight and averting its gaze.

She stares blankly ahead and squeaks,
I don't want things to change.

---

Do you remember? When we were happy? When our days were filled with laughter and good company? Here is what I have learned - you only know it's perfect once it's passed.

---

My heart feels like bursting, to be reminded of the past 5 years and the joy you never noticed because you were too busy being joyful. Such a bittersweet feeling, to see these smiling faces and know that you are inexorably hurtling towards a reality that precludes any possibility of continuing to enjoy the warmth and genuine companionship that you've grown so used to. To be reminded of a treasure you cannot take with you. To leave behind old friends is to catch a glimpse of a bright and wonderful future that can never happen. I'm certainly not ready to say goodbye yet - I need more time. At least a year more. An intermission of 365 days to reflect - to pause and properly cherish and appreciate what the past 5 years have meant to me. If you're not careful, the future has a way of creeping up on you - before you know it, it's in front of you, and the past is already a blimp on the horizon behind you, receding at an ever increasing rate, out of reach and you're left with a handful of parting words and sentiments, which you stash hastily into your pockets or drawer because while you were busy looking at the disappearing past, the present had arrived and unfortunately appears to be quite difficult and will probably require a fair amount of discipline and attention to manage. The older I get, the more conscious and deliberate I have to be about appreciating the good things in my life. Otherwise I am in danger of finding myself forty years old, turning around and scratching my chin wondering why I am still not yet happy.

Blessed beyond measure - that is what I have been. I feel so incredibly thankful - sometimes it gets too much and I feel the urge to stop whatever I'm doing and watch as the present inexorably recedes into the past and wish desperately I could capture or crystallise each present moment and carry it with me. I have never felt so strong a desire to stop time as I have these past few days.

---

There are moments in your life that make you pause and take stock of your surroundings, and reflect on all of the events and accidents and happenings that have gotten you to where you are now. And if you really stop to think about it, I am always amazed and surprised at how little of it I could have predicted or planned, and at the same time how I cannot now imagine it any other way. All of a sudden these moments which seemed ordinary, when you lay them out together like a mosaic, side by side, it's clear to see that they are all part of a larger picture, a tapestry.

When I get in a certain mood, I look back and can only see my faults. My shortcomings. Wasted opportunities and days spent half-asleep. But occasionally, I am reminded of the good, of precious moments, ones that give life meaning and worth. Life-affirming experiences and other things that sound cliche, that we somehow so easily forget or take for granted. And then I realise how blind I have been, now that laid before me is the irrefutable proof, that the past 5 years have not always been easy, but they have been worth it. That my life is fuller and richer not in spite of the storms and difficulties but because of them. It is so easy to lose sight of that.

Maybe it's called growing sentimental, but when I look back on the last 5 years, and then ahead into the inscrutable future, I cannot help but get misty eyed and lapse into reverie. And I feel a tug deep inside, and I am convinced that this is joy: contentment laced with heartache, youth and loss, reunion at a funeral, a sweet and soulful affliction, the fact that you have loved something so much that its absence agglomerates into this strange admixture of pain and gratitude; a locket with chains; a kind of keepsake.