You make your past your past.

High school feels very far away to me right now.

It is, you might say. But what I mean is it feels infinitely farther than two years away.

I feel like a completely different person. Like the feelings I had then and the reactions I had then and how I did things and the THINGS I did...that were all so completely, completely paramount then--felt like the MOST important thing, then...are the unfaded mark on the wall when you take down a picture that's been hanging for a long time. They're just transparent spectres I can put my hand through.

And I feel like most of the people I knew then are in the same boat.

And here are the facts: We've grown up. All of us. Or maybe this is more accurate: We've changed.





Sometimes, I want to go back.

Sometimes, I wish really, really hard that I could take my life and transport it back. Back. Not because it was the best time of my life or because my life sucks now. (I definitely realize high school wasn't gold-coated. I'm perfectly happy looking forward too. And I know the whole "live in the moment" "just accept reality" stuff. Valid, all)

It's just because, for nostalgia's sake, I want to feel what that life is like again. To be that person again. Like trying on a halloween costume. Because, to be honest, I think I kind of forget. And I think that's a perfectly valid wish.

Sometimes, I wish it so hard it hurts.
But it never happens. And you know why?

Ignoring all the logical reasons about not being able to go back in time, it's this: Because as hard as you wish it, you can never fashion a memory into something real again.

A memory is just a intangible piece of crumbling tissue paper wafting through, always buoyed just out of reach by the breeze.

You can look at it, and it's beautiful.
But you can't catch it.
If you do, I suppose, it's only to find that it crumbles in your hand, leaving nothing but dust.

You can look back and smile and laugh and remember, but as hard as you try, you cannot make a memory be something real and living again. Just like you cannot make someone love you. If you think you have, there's a good chance you're lying to yourself.

It's sad. Sad that some things don't last. Sad that some things die. Sad that you can't really ever go back to before.
But here's the glimmer of hope: Memories, while you may always look back on them with the vague and unidentifiable pang of longing in your side, will always be there to remind you that it did--in fact--exist, once. And though you may never be able to inhabit them fully again, you can make new things. New things that are real. New things that will become memories, maybe, someday, too.

Call me crazy.

(I have no idea where this is going. I haven't really thought much about it.)

So, so often I find myself pausing. Standing in the middle of the sidewalk or in a room full of people, thinking...How the hell did I get here?

It's that moment where you look around at the place or the people and look back on every single choice you've made that's brought you to that point and you get so confused because it's not at all where you imagined you'd be or how your life would go and it doesn't at all fit in with the elaborate imagine you've constructed of yourself for yourself.

More often than not, it's more like...How the hell did I get here again?

I seem to find myself back at the same crossroads over and over and over. Despite what I think I've "learned" or the steadfast dedication I (apparently) had to never, never do (insert thing here) again. Despite whatever pain or frustration it casused me before.
It makes me wonder. Am I destined to continually follow the same ridiculous circle path--even when I can't really see the end and think it leads somewhere else? Am I even making sense right now? I don't think I am.

I continually make the same decisions, even when I should know better. I put off that paper. I go out on Saturday night. I stay up late. I have that argument. I put myself out there.
And I continually reap the same consequences. I am stressed. I am sick. I am tired. I ruin relationships. I get hurt.

Someone told me once (or maybe it was a quote) that the definition of crazy is doing the same things over and over and expecting different conquences, and it made me squirm a bit. Because honestly? I knew that was me.

I think that not learning from your mistakes is one of the worst things you can do...whether is be because you're too stubborn to pick up the pride or just too stupid to see it (though the second gets a little reprieve...until they DO realize it. Then if they ignore it, it's worse. Sadly, that's me.)

It's like...stagnation vs. dynamism. Like... the contrast of realtionships in Wuthering Heights (only not.) The same stale cycle of over and over and over vs. having the strength to break out in one bold, all-in move.

But how do you do that? I mean. How do you learn? How many times should you try before you have to conclude that nothing is changing? You don't want to give up too easily. Before you're brought to the absolute precipice and change is essential to survival?

Just call me crazy.