A Visit To The Past

Sometimes when the present time is just too harsh on me and I am hurting a lot, I want to simply escape it and visit --the past.

I went under my bed, pulled that big black box that contains a lot of stuff of various kinds. One box contains my grade school pictures. What a fat kid I was then and still never lost weight. I remember my classmates who teased me "baboy" and "tabatchoy" and how I cried because I don't know how to defend myself. They're my friends now, by the way. I also saw some achievements I've kept, some ribbons and medals, and I wonder why I don't get one anymore. Another box contained memories of high school. Four crazy years. It amazes me that I have this collection of headbands, and how I adored rock bands then. One side of the box made my heart skipped a bit. My First Love, First heartbreak. It's just so funny that I've treasured a lot of things from my first Love. I’ve kept his mechanical pencil, his comb, even the ripped part of his school uniform. His simple doodles on a paper, even the wrappers of the food he gave me. This brings back a smile on my face, the feeling of being in love and how my heart was broken back then, how I wondered why we never ended up together and how happy I am that I have moved on and how happy I am that he's happy with his fiancée. Too bad we were too shy to have a picture together. As I went deeper in the box I saw more stuff. The toga cap I never returned and my corsage, letters from my high school best friend and some text messages from special people I've written down on a notebook. There are also yearly birthday messages that I really treasure. My pictures, looking innocent and young to the world and blaming stress for my appearance now. I somehow looked beautiful then. There are poetry, writings, and whatnot. I am happy that I have this personality, keeping things whether valuable or not to serve as a memento of special moments I will never forget. Everything I see reminds me of something and it brings me back from where it happened.

This is just the first box and I still have two more to dig but I stopped. I stopped not because these memories are too overwhelming to grasp. Everything may not contain a happy memory behind it, some of it was really heartbreaking but those were memories I learned to live with -- memories that make me sad for a while but make me happy that I have overcome it.

I stopped because I decided to go back to the present. As I go back, I still have my heart broken from some painful things of the world. However, having a visit to the past makes me realize that this present pain will become a memory of the past that I will visit in the future.