Forgetting-Losing
As an eight-year-old elementary school kid,
my life was simple. I would go to the school which was at the time merely considered
as a yet another place with metal slides and friends whom I could play hide and
seek with. My daily routine at school was: playtime-lunch-playtime.
My parents were both extremely busy. Mom
came back from work late, and dad was not even living with our family because
of his job in another region. So instead of going home after school, I went to my
grandparents’ every day and waited for mom to come until the clock struck 10. My
Grandparents were my second-parents. With them, I learned not to devour food
before adults had their chance. With them, I began to think how cool it was to
collect things- like books and souvenirs which were set up on the drawer in
their living room-and I started to collect things such as rocks, erasers,
papers, feeling so professional. With them, I realized how a night’s walk was
not frightening at all, but actually was soothing. They loved me and I loved
them back. With them, I grew up.
My simplicity in life began to crack as I
entered middle school. I adjusted myself to a new daily life routine which did
not include a whole chunk of ‘playtime’. Then I started to run as if I was
chasing something, like everyone else around me was. At some point, having a
dinner with grandparents once or twice a week began to feel like a burden. I
would feel disturbed when I woke up on sweet Sunday mornings to pick up phone
calls from my grandfather. When I visited them, I made a promise to ‘drop in as
often as I can’. A promise that I had to keep renewing. My precious ‘collections’
in a special box were crouching in the corner barely noticed.
Whenever I felt sorry, I reassured myself
that it was not my fault. It was because the environment around me was getting
more complex. I had to form new connections with other people to be a member of
a group. Participating in ‘social activities’. I was always somehow, somewhat, ‘occupied’.
There was simply not enough room to fit in everything. Nonetheless, I still had some time to check
things on Facebook in my free time, text people, eat out with my friends after
the finals. Somewhere inside my mind, I knew
the issue was about me, not about the ‘environment’.Changes were brought about because I was forgetting. About time, memories,
feelings I shared.
People forget. There are many things they
can forget. They range from concrete objects such as their phones to something
more sentimental as their memories. When you do not care about anything you
used to care so much. When you feel a gap time has set between you and some
people around you. When you begin to think things you poured so much passion
into were not so important. You are forgetting.
Some people think this whole process of ‘forgetting’
as a part of growing up. According to them, it enhances your ability to
categorize what it important from what it not. It makes you focused. Once you
fall into a habit of forgetting, you begin to forget some things mattered at
all to you. You become so used to it that it is not a great deal anymore. You might
think things are moving on to much more important things, socially and
academically productive things.
When
you do forget, it means you are watching them escape and slip through your
fingers. Forgetting means you are losing something. Another piece of valuable
memory, sentiment, story. Forgotten, lost in your life. Do not let it slip away.
Keep it. Grasp it.
beautiful.
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