Nostalgia

One thing I’ve always known is nostalgia. In the short time I’ve lived, it’s mostly been about school life, mostly the things we did outside of our classes. Heck, this site is also a repository and a record of all things I’ve done in the past. I hardly look forward to the future nowadays; it’s just one gray mess I don’t want to get my hands into. It’s sticky and depressing. Playing back those old days warms me up better, and keeps me from wanting that big jump to a foreign place and arrangement.

I like to think I’ve gained a good number of friends every time I stepped onto a higher year. I’m very grateful I met them, even if I’ve hardly told them anything about me. But leaving them behind also seems to be part of the cycle—not that I want to do so. The new chapter consumes the previous one due to uncontrollable circumstances, or the laziness to overcome them. Or maybe we weren’t really friends after all.

Right now, the newness hasn’t been that drastic, relatively. And maybe it’s not about the friendship anyway. It seems to be about that grayness. People want clear visions of their future, come twenty years, give or take a few decades. Then you shift back to the past, and blink. I didn’t do anything wrong! No, I didn’t! I enjoyed doing those things I did in the past. I’m proud of what I’ve done. But they don’t seem relevant or useful anymore. It’s as if I’ve enjoyed the incompleteness and uncertainty of studying. No, not necessarily studying, but that of absorbing things like a sponge, without having to apply myself afterwards.

There was nothing specific in my mind—in the afterwards—except to experience as much as I can so that perhaps, along the way, I might suddenly realize what I was truly meant to do. Right now it’s not about service or sacrifice. It’s about feeling less deprived, sizing up my options, and trying to be a sponge for as long as I can. That, and trying to figure out whether I’ve done the right thing.

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