#MondayMusings : Down the memory lane
While Mondays are usually spent wondering how did the weekend go by and waiting for the next weekend to come, today was a little different sort of a Monday for me. Stuck at home because of the bandh, an unplanned leave happened. While Eat-Sleep-Read repeat is usually the mantra for days like these, I had a strange urge to look at pictures from my childhood. Yes, I do this often when I come and when I’m alone at home – because that way I walk down the memory lane alone, at my own pace.
I wished a friend for his birthday this morning and we started discussing how time flies. When life at work seems boring sometimes, I have this wish to go back to my college days. But today was different – I wanted to re-live my childhood- the days before I went to school, the school days. I sat down with a stack of albums from the cupboard. I took looked it each photograph trying to go back and think if I remembered something from back then. Some pictures I didn’t even remember when they were taken, some I had faint recollection and then there were a few that I could remember like they had just happened.
Childhood was full of innocence, of dreams that always seemed possible, of finding joy in little things and just living in the moment. Though there were times when I’d feel that I should grow up soon, most of the times such thoughts just came and went by in the blink of an eye. I had slightly difficult times while growing up, but the friendships made things better.
Walking down the memory lane is a bittersweet experience. It reminds of things you once had and now no longer have. It also reminds you of things you have now that you wish you had earlier. Those pictures were priceless. Today we take a hundred pictures to get that perfect picture. But back in those days, it wasn’t that way. It was the memory that made the picture perfect.
Now after all these years, it does seem that life went by too fast. There are a lot of times when I wish I could go back in time and live those moments, those memories again. Would life have turned out differently if there were a few things that I could change? But there are always things that I can’t change. Life only moves forward. All I can do is take a tour down the memory lane and think about those memories all over again. I know that it is these moments that have made me who I am.
How often do you take a walk down the memory lane?
Linking this to Monday Musings at Everyday Gyaan.
I am totally a sucker for old pics! I love collecting and going through old memories too. I agree with you about the charm of old world pictures where the memory was more important than the perfect picture. Nowadays people hardly have hard copies of pictures and most of the memories are reduced to living in the storage of our smartphones.
I also take time every once in a while to reflect on life as it used to be by pulling out my photo albums. The memories are far different than what the reality is, though. As an example, I grew up in Sonora, California, a beautiful place in the foothills of the Sierra-Nevada mountains.
Pictures from that time in my life are precious to me, and bring back wonderful times spent in school and with friends growing up. But it is funny – or perhaps the better word might be “strange,” that when I went back a few years ago, everything was different. The town looked nothing like my memories.
With the recent passing of my uncle, a lot of pictures of him and the extended family have surfaced. So glad for these that keep memories of happier times and loved ones close to us.
One thing I like about pictures is that one can see them whenever and of course refresh all the memories…
Reema, it was so nice going through your writing on bittersweet memories.