21 Questions, And No Right Answers

Faded memories by ~velar1

Isn’t it fun to turn back the pages of a photo album, or, as is more apt in this digital age, to go through old Facebook pictures from years past?  We laugh at the ridiculous hair-styles, the awful clothes, the old hangout you used to love and now cannot stand, the old friends we used to love and now too cannot stand. The inexorable passing of time is evident all around us, is it not?

I am forever looking back at my life, perhaps because I am fascinated with how I have made it this far. Believe me when I say, I have come a long way from my younger years, and considering that I am hardly anyone of even minute significance right now, this speaks a lot about the sort of person I was long ago.

Yet, as much as we’d like to pretend otherwise, that person in the picture really is us. Perhaps not as mature, perhaps not as hurt, perhaps not as happy or as sad; but nevertheless that person is still you. Or is it?

Indulge me for a minute, and pretend that we’re in a Michael Crichton novel, one where we are able to bend the fabric of time so to speak. Imagine if we could transport ourselves, and our consciousness, back into our younger selves.

What the heck would we do?

Would you really say that thing that got you beaten up in school? Would you really like that girl? And if so, would you really write that note to her and pass it in that totally un-subtle way?

Would you let your parents still yell at you, even though you now know better? Would you ignore your brother or sister the same way you used to, knowing he/she would return the favour soon? Would you have told him or her that you loved them, if you knew how much harder it would be to say that in the future? 

Would you side with your father or your mother during that divorce?

Would you choose those subjects, and in effect, that career line? Would you have put your foot down and said ‘no’ to your parents’ desire to keep you close to home, or would you have silently been led like you were then? Would you kiss that girl, at that time, or would you have waited just those 5 minutes more, in time for the moon to come out and make it that more perfect? Would you have kissed her at all, if you knew how it turned out?

title and registration. by~RAWR-ima-Dinoroar

Would you have tried so hard to be liked, if you knew that nothing you did would be good enough? Would you have let the memories fade faster, if you knew that you would be forgotten first? Would you have made the same mistakes, even though you know that the pain is what made you who you are? Would you have willingly suffered again, just because you told yourself that it was ‘necessary’? What if you decided it wasn’t?

How different would those old pictures look now? How many of those memories would be wiped away, to be replaced by new ones, and maybe a new you? What if we never became who we are today?

Who are we, really, today?