nothing's changed

“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