My name is Greg, and I am 19. Gotta get used to saying that. Man, I feel old. It’s like, all of a sudden, I’m being bombasted by these regrets of “typically18″ things I missed out on. (Not that I even know what they are. Sex on prom night, maybe…) It’s like that one episode of Friends when Phoebe laments about not having done any of the things she was going to do at 30. I don’t know, sometimes it feels like I’m just not doing enough. But that’s something else entirely.
Had a little gathering last weekend–first birthday party I’ve had since the 5th grade. (Went a lot better this time, though.) Invited a few from AFS and some others from school. Xenia made pizza, Balazs sang “Ring of Fire,” and Hauge–well, it’ll be a while before he sees hair on his right breast again.
Other than that, things have been normal. After falling sick and taking absence from school almost all of last week, I am pretty proud of my so-far perfect attendance this week. (I even went to History; I don’t think I’ve been in that class for over three months.) Hope I won’t screw it up by blogging this late.
But you know, today, sitting in class, I realized something: I’m starting not to make a big deal out of things anymore. Well, it must sound pretty obvious, but it happened really subtly: I don’t log about “who I talked to at school/what I ate today” anymore, I’m getting used to the snow (and I’ll admit, sometimes walking in it can be a real drag)–it’s not that I don’t appreciate these things, but they’ve become so normal to me that they’re no longer worth mentioning. It’s a very strange thought, on s’habitue à tout. Even if we have something, permanent, unforgettable, it loses its extravagance eventually…a preferred dish, a favorite song. Change is the only solution.
I watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button today, an excellent and thought-provoking film. And parallelly thinking, even if we could capture ourselves in a dance, a night, a moment and stay that way, would our satisfaction in that moment be the same? If Benjamin and Daisy were to have stopped aging or de-aging then, would things still have remained as beautiful? Surely it would wither into something average–the charm is in the ephemerality of it.
Perhaps it’s best to let memories stay in the past and enjoy the fleeting moments while one can. Perhaps these memories are the only things that remain the same, snapshots of one’s emotions–but only to be reflected upon, never to be relived. And in a bittersweet way, perhaps it’s better this way.
