THE PAIN YOU FEEL TODAY WAS HAPPINESS YESTERDAY
“HOW TO MANIPULATE MY FRIENDS INTO AGREEING FOR A TRIP?”
This is literally what I am googling right now!
I’ve been trying to get my group to agree to a trip for ages, but it keeps getting cancelled or someone is always missing when we finally plan it.
I plan the steps mentally, searching for perfect pictures to evoke nostalgia in my friends, as suggested by Quora.
I send a text to my friend according to the plan.
Looking at those pictures again and again, I find myself transported to the time where we were playing ‘Don’t get your shoes soaked’ near the water.
I go a little too far too deep into the water. I feel like I am drowning.
It’s deep. Dangerously and incomprehensibly deep.
…
Suddenly a boat appears. I see my friends. I throw my arms around. They see me. They give me a hand and pull me out of the pool. Now I am on the boat with them. I am present. It’s a huge boat much like Titanic. We aren’t physically close to each other but we are there. Safe and busy with our own lives.
I look into the memories I just got rescued from. I can see them flowing like water.
One where we meet for the first time. The small talks turning into late night conversations.
In that pool of past, I see the time when my friend drives me hostel as fast as possible so that I could bring my document and submit in the college before it’s get closed.
I see the time when we are clapping and singing and dancing till 4 in the morning in Jagrata.
I see the time where one of our friend is teaching another friend how ‘Beer is not alcohol’.
I see the time when we drive for 6 kms just for a nice kulhad wali chai.
I see the memory of teasing our single friend with every hot girl passing by us.
And there it is! The memory where we assemble like Avengers. Ready to fight 6 feet tall goons to protect our friend.
Looking at all those memories I can’t help but wonder, what if we could assemble like that ONE LAST TIME to laugh, to tease, to love, to eat out of each other’s plates…
What if I could hold onto the past just ONE LAST TIME !
What if I could stop the time from moving….
I think to myself, “if I make a hole in the boat, we will be able to get inside the pool of past where we could just relive the moment for ONE LAST TIME.”
So I do it. I make the hole. The boat gets overloaded with past memories. We start sinking. We hit the bottom of the past and everything becomes STILL.
Nothing is moving. All the memories…they are frozen. Time is frozen. All my friends are frozen.
I am there, in the past, wandering in all those memories in a loop, ashamed to admit…that I am hating the memories because they are not moving. They are just there. Like a constant reminder of a sempiternal trap, laughing on me. They make me feel STUCK. No change at all.
I killed all my friends because I couldn’t let go.
…
The alarm rings, I struggle to open my eyes.
Seems like I fell asleep strategizing the trip.
I wake up.
I try to make sense of the time.
I realize I was dreaming and immediately sigh in relief that time is moving….
I check my phone.
WhatsApp 2 messages from 1 chat 2:57 am
Somehow, she said exactly what I needed to hear to liberate me from my trap.
Long story short,
We may or may not go on a trip this year too.
But guess what?
I am not drowning anymore!
I am satisfied because my friend’s words hit me just right on point.
“It’s always about One last time. That one last time. Can’t we just make it about the new beginnings?? New this new that?? How are we so certain that only the one last time things are going to make us happy and blessed.”
Someone has said,
“THE PAIN YOU FEEL TODAY,
WAS THE HAPPINESS YEASTERDAY.
THAT’S THE DEAL!”
If you are lucky enough to have good memories in the first place, don’t complaint about the pain of not reliving them again.
Many people aren’t even lucky enough to experience it once in life.
So yes, finally after a long time I am in a place where I am not holding on to the past.
I have made my Peace with not being able to recreate the good old memories.
Instead, I am thrilled about creating new memories, whether it’s with them or with new people.
Because I know no matter how far me and my friends are, we are always gonna be there for each other.
So, It’s okay to let time slip like sand.
It’s more than okay to feel excited for new beginnings, for new people.
And it’s perfectly okay to feel the pain sometimes since
It’s beautiful because it has passed.
If it would happen all the time,
It’s would be just an ordinary day.
Let the time move.
If you don’t want to be drown into the past-
Move along with the time…..
