Paid Retrospection — a personal view
“I remember sand, I remember waves. I remember a dusky face, calm set of eyes staring down in mine. I remember cackling and wide smiles. I remember being careless, carefree and happy. I remember running along pathways, not caring about which direction my lace skirt flew in.”
Flashes of happy days keep coming back, some of them sunnier than most days in my city of joy. Why does this bring back my romance timeline unnecessarily…
The city gives and takes - gives you your many 'firsts’, strips away your smile when you mentally revisit the same firsts. So then you think, change. Change is inevitable, a refresh button that you click on the present shit in your life. Flushing it down seems like the best option you have. So you go for it.
So you move to a new place, you work, you meet new people, you rekindle, you try and you give up. You realise that places change, people remain the same. Languages change, the niceness among the locals and the occasional assholes, both are consistent.
You also get your flashes, as annoying as the tiny rashes you get in summer - itchy, difficult to get rid of and constant. More stable in consistency than your regular life and it's dramatic events.
Life's any derogatory name you wish to declare it by - a dick when you're punched down and a pussy/cunt when you're raging on someone. It's even weirder to hear more words for female genitals in particular but that's an argument for another bedtime.
Funny is that genitals are the first thing you associate the worst people with, the same thing that you probably use to get off with, from time to time. No shame in saying that you flick it, alright mate - but then draw the parallels, hmm.
These flashes still keep coming back as you wonder, now what do I do to get rid of them. Like annoying mosquitoes, you decide on the conventional method of getting rid of them - a pesticide named 'moving on'. Like all pesticides, the beginning is great, the peak is stellar and you may actually almost begin to feel really, really good? Then, someone, whoever is the puppeteer in your universe, decides to shit the bed that day - tumbling goes your happy phase and off you go, for a toss. Ah, fuck.
From moments to prolonged minutes, having past tenses creeping up in your head is tiring and I daresay, a drink or two on that train of thought sometimes does good but sometimes, just fuels a car crash. So what do you do? Yoga, therapy, friendliness, being nice, giving more chances and the puppeteer makes another entrance, just stops you right there. Says the script was not this cheesy, gives you a different one.
Turns out to be a dumpster dive in comparison but hey, heyyyy....we work with what we get, right? And like your overcharged parents or friend, you decide to give it a shot. Final one, last one, this is it. You leave out hope from the equation and you just add effort. You anticipate but you go ahead.
“I remember focus, I remember concentrating on something. I remember being happy on completing my work. I remember walking back home in the rain, I hadn’t carried an umbrella. I remember smiling as I made myself a cup of tomato soup.”
(Pauses on being signalled)
*a pen stops scribbling, a notebook shuts, fingers snap, click*
It took an expensive hour to retrospect on her own set of memory flashes - she almost felt cheated. Seeing the disappointment, doc says, "Hey, you were progressing anyway, I'm just a catalyst". Well, she wasn't wrong.
