Have you ever traveled back in time? From sitting at the dining table over breakfast, have you ever felt your surroundings suddenly beginning to shift? Have you ever experienced that you are no more in the present?
I might have sounded a bit poetic but we all, from time to time, hold the hand of nostalgia and travel back in time.
The older I am getting, the more I am missing the days I left behind. Not that I want to change the life I have had so far, but I do sometimes miss the carefree childhood days when the main worry was to be able to watch the afternoon cartoon on BTV, or finish homework as quickly as possible on Wednesday nights to be able to watch MacGyver. In winter, I would just wait for the afternoon time so I could rush downstairs and play badminton. I looked forward to going to school on weekdays 'cause school meant friends and fun.
As we grow up, our tender shoulders are hardened by worldly duties. Our hearts are hardened too, so things that made us cry at one time, do not bother us as much now. Time changes so many things, time changes life and things in ways we could never imagine when we were 13 or 15.
We had dreams. We had dreams about a happy future, where unrequited love, broken promises, betrayals, deaths, lies and hardships had no place. In their childhood dreams, no one worried about under-eye wrinkles, a receding hairline or an increasing waistline!
I often wish I could go back in time for only three days -- three days is too short to relive one's childhood, but I think it's still going to be the best vacation ever. Wouldn't it be nice to go back to a time when the world seemed like one big happy place!
As we age, we begin to recollect stories that we kept buried in our hearts for years. We regret about certain things that we did and did not. But at the same time, we think that our mistakes made us what we are today, perhaps better and stronger humans, but perhaps not.
On days when nostalgia sets in, you think about the friends you have lost, you wonder how you and some of your closest friends drifted apart. You search for the answer, but in vein -- those things happened so many years ago that all you now remember is the separation, and not the reasons behind it.
They vanished, your friends, in the same way a magician vanishes a bunny with his magic wand. You look for them in the yellowed pages of your old diaries. You find them there but you cannot bring them back to life. It's then when you sometimes wish that you could go back in time and fix the things that went wrong.
Our fast-paced lives and earthly responsibilities wear us out. We miss the company of the people, who we loved and called friends. It's then when nostalgia holds our hands and takes us back to the time when the world appeared a happier place to live.
By Wara Karim
Date of Publication: March 18, 2014
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