“Nothing’s changed, you’re still the same”. I used to detest
the phrase. After having gone through so much, having done so much, all it took
was one single comment, to make you feel like no progress had been made. It
used to make me feel like the said person was spiting me for having made
progress, for having learnt nothing.
Things change. They always do. The circumstances we are
bound by keep pushing us forward. As much as we want to, we never can freeze
time and live in the moment. The daunting future that plagues every one of us
keeps us on the move. Many of us strive for more because that seems like the
right thing to do. After all, everyone is doing it. If I don’t, I lose out. If I
don’t get ahead, I’ll be left behind in the dust. And so we trudge on,
achievement after achievement, grasping after what could be had if more effort
is put in. As such, the people around us change with the environment. What happens
to those relationships then? What happens to those sweet moments spent together
when, for a moment, it seemed like there was no better person(s) to be with,
that there was no moment more special than the present?
I’ve changed, for sure. Too many things have happened, too
many decisions made, too many moments passed, to not have effected any change
in me. And yet, every time we come together, we reminisce about old times. We
reminisce about ventures of our years past, about crazy moments spent together.
We embrace the past and always wish we could turn back the clock.
Then it occured to me. We desire to catch up with old
friends because we want to turn back the clock. We want to throw away all the
bad stuff in between then and now, and live as though nothing’s changed. We
want to recreate the past and the feelings it came with, and pretend, that
things are the same as they were years back. We revive the person they knew and
recreate the mask we once wore despite all the cracks it has. We hold on
desperately to these memories because they serve as anchors to who we once
were. They mark our passage through life and help us remember how much we’ve
grown.
We all wear masks. We change them and store the old ones for
memory’s sake. When the need arises, we put them back on and steal a moment
back in time. Then we put on the present and contiue living life, remembering
how the people we knew created a “me” that’s that much more special. After all,
what are we, but a mask of many layers?
All the world's a
stage, And all the men and women merely players
