I usually like to think of myself as the self-aware, moderately realistic girl who generally looks to the future while keeping an eye on the present. A couple times a year, however, I find myself dwelling ever so slightly on the past. I open the drawers to the dresser in the room that’s only slightly mine, in that my still half-packed suitcase lies open on its floor, and I find myself drawn to the little things that remind me of simpler times.
I read my college admission (and rejection) letters, and thumb through old yearbooks, trying to read the scribbled scrawls that wish me a “great summer.” I read past journal entries that are almost too personal, realising how much I’ve grown through the years and how painful honesty, even to yourself, can really be. I look through all my old makeup, eventually deciding to throw away the ugly purple eyeshadow I wouldn’t be caught dead in and reacquainting myself with old hair clips glittery with flowers and butterflies.
Then, almost as a last ritual, I read the letters. You see, I used to be this great correspondent, back in the days before my instant messaging addiction. About 7 or 8 years ago, I would write pages and pages in letters every week. Once, I remember sending a notebook full of letters to a best friend. With the cute sentimentality only a 13 year-old could possess, I kept most of the letters from that time, and they still sit, slightly dust-covered, underneath my bed.
But it’s not those letters that I read. That possibly dubious honor goes to the three letters that take permanent residence underneath my piles of cute stationery. They always seem to leave me with this sort of bittersweet emotion, a warm fuzzy feeling coupled with a horrible sense of loss. It almost makes me want to relive some of those lovely high school memories, which leads me to wonder… Is this just me suffering a momentary lapse in good judgment and dwelling on the past? Or am I actually looking, perhaps all too hopefully, towards the future?
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