I look at someone’s album or listen to a song and lo! I am transported back in time. Back into some of the most treasured memories. Ones that I didn’t even know I remembered.
Remembering makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. Sometimes I find myself in tears sitting at my workstation, or can’t seem to stop crying in the supermarket, or laughing out loud in the cab and in the process getting the cabbie pretty worried if I might bite next. So far I haven’t been discovered but the thought of being discovered is pretty embarrassing in itself.
Like watching the 20-something couple made me travel back into my lovey-dovey days. And the flood of memories was such that I could actually write a book on it. But I won’t put all you good people through so much torture yet (may be some other time).
Another time I was looking at the album of a perfect stranger. They are two sisters who are married and far away from their parents. It all suddenly brought back memories of ‘home’. Not the one now. Not where my parents stay. But the time when we were still in school and college and fought and laughed together. Mum threatened to throw us out every second day and we all wished we would be living elsewhere… a different life, a different experience. Anything but same old home. Now all I want is to travel back just once more into that same ‘home’. Mum yelling to finish dinner, us whiling away time in front of the TV and bickering over which channel to watch, giggling over petty things, the carefree – careless life. Just once I want to travel back there to say thank you for everything that was there. And all this made me write a huge tearful scrap to the perfect stranger. Luckily the stranger didn’t worry about my sanity or even if she did she didn’t let me guess from her reply.
A journey back to those school days which we all were in such a hurry to grow out of. A journey back to the college life which we wanted to get over with so that we could get a job and move on. A journey back to so many places we can never be at but wish for once we got a second chance to return to.
Second chance – reminds me of all the things that I would do differently. Sometimes I start going back in time to undo and redo incidents. One leads to another which leads to a third and in no time I am back somewhere in my early teens trying to think of how life could be different only if I got a second chance at it now.
Then I think, may be if I did things different I wouldn’t be here.
My alter-ego replies ” …that’s the whole point, how not be here.”
I say “…but I am happy. I know I don’t have it all, it’s far from ideal, far far from even a bit of what I had thought, but these were the people I wanted to be with… it’s a small price to pay.”
She says “…no it isn’t. If things could have been done differently there would be a lot more and may be these people too.”
Me the eternal optimist says “… ah! May be is just not good enough. At least there’s certainty today.”
I win.
Where was I? And how did I get here? There I go again. My ramblings. Earlier I couldn’t stop day dreaming and now I cant stop rambling. Lucky both are my secrets. And I can’t say I don’t treasure them. Well, this is how get move from one thing to another. Sometimes I wonder if it’s age… but it’s too soon to blame it on that. I have been thinking a while and finally got to write it down. I know it’ll not make much sense to anyone. That’s just me.