Flash backs

[Bahasa Indonesia]
Let’s talk about cleaning up a bit more. Looks like this particular last couple of weeks have been especially intense on the matter.

Last night as I watched a Disney channel movie, Bruce Willis’s character was told that he has been too vain to think that it is he who is helping the younger him (the younger him traveled through time to meet him).

True, perhaps the younger him can learn a thing or two, but the younger him is also there to help him remember. Help him remember. There has been many of those occurrences in my life lately.

I have been (re-)introduced to some 'crazy' friends, which remind me how to laugh so hard about non-important matters. People who can joke and talk lightly about everything, even about things that have hurt them in life.

Different people with different kinds of craziness. But somehow, they are all me. Some feel like they have been brought from my past specifically to remind me of myself then. (he he, so vain)

That coffee with a friend on Wednesday night has especially done it for me. My friend and I spoke and laughed about a lot of things. We spoke about the past, the present, about work, social life, and relationships. We spoke about how and why.

Our attitudes/personalities have changed in sync with our work and stages of life. And how we have changed. The words or action we said or did to people back then, we do not have the heart to say or do them to people now. Or so help us, God.

That conversation is a reminder of where I have been coming from. A reminder of what I have become now. Perhaps a reminder that I should always have that lighter silly almost-crazy side with me. That I need to stay insane to keep my sanity.

Or, maybe, it is just a sign that I have been trying too hard to stay away from the past (for good reasons, I thought) and create this new stronger much more matured identity.

Those pasts. At first we dwell upon them and we feel terrible about ourselves. Then we push them so deep within us and (we think) we are over them. Then we realize they are still there, still hurting.

We defend ourselves by rejecting them altogether, without realizing that we are not really over them. We merely become angry, bitter, or at least skeptical about them.

That conversation on Wednesday night made me think that the past is not that bad. It is part of the building blocks that have made me what I am today.

It is what makes life, life. Accept. Enjoy. Let it flow. Learning to do so. Bit by bit. And not to forget, a pitch of madness to ease the way.

Thank you. All of you.