How many times have you been tidying your room and found yourself wasting three hours through distraction to a box of photos. Or finding some birthday cards that you end up reading and keeping for the next time that you’re supposed to be having a clear out. You even keep the ones that simply address you and sign out. “Dear Harriet, Happy Birthday. Love Tom”. Oh but I remember him from school. The good times we had. You know, the job that was supposed to take you half an hour slowly stretches out to take up most of your day. We’ve all been there.
I was looking through some memories with a friend the other night when it crossed my mind that these are the good old days. Here and now is the time we’ve got to love. I know it’s so cliche to say so and there is an expression along these lines but they really are. My friend is older than me and was looking back on times of being younger. The smile that filled her face upon remembering these people and these wild nights was lovely to see. We now have photos together and even though they date back a few years, I still look at some of the earlier ones and think what great fun we had that night or how lovely that visit was to the beach.
I’m using this specific example of one particular friend because it’s what prompted me to write this post, but in general we don’t quite realise how fast time goes by (no matter how much we comment upon it). We constantly find photos from our pasts and smile thinking how great that holiday was or what brilliant weather we had that summer.
When you actually think back to that moment did you feel as happy as you now are reflecting upon it in hindsight on a miserable rainy and cold winters day in February? Did you REALLY appreciate those moments?
I get that ‘hindsight is a beautiful thing’ and we often don’t realise how happy we are until we look back, but I for one am going to try extremely hard to feel in the moments what I know I’ll feel when I look back at the photos.
Facebook tells us each day what existed in our past. Today in 2013 I was apparently telling the world that I’d love a baby owl that never grows up for my birthday, I still do. In 2009 I’d been on a run – that was probably the first and last time this happened. But looking back on these daily reminders, I often think that I should’ve loved that moment more. Loved how I was more. Loved people within those memories more.
I want to look back on my photos and love them as much as I loved that memory in reality. I want to live each day knowing in the future it’ll make part of what will be my ‘good old days’ and I want to love it with everything I’ve got.
No matter how past it you think you are, how boring and mundane your middle aged life is, how stressful and scary your twenties are, how annoying it is being a teenager and too young to do loads of cool things, remember that these days will make up the days you look back upon and love. Remember that smile that’ll fill your face when you stumble upon these pictures in a box when sorting out your loft.
Continue to take as many photos as you can but next time you get out your phone to take a drunken selfie on a Friday night, pause for a while and make sure you’re loving that moment as much as you’re going to love it in memory.