Having spent several weekends feeling nostalgic—I dug up one of my video finds from a few weeks back for a replay session. Should you be too lazy to watch the piece, in a nutshell it conveys that as individuals, we live our lives steered by how we value time: either bound to our past, or our present, or our future.
Past-oriented, and you’re either a past positive, where one remembers the good old times, or past negative, if you focus on everything gone wrong with your life. If you live for the present, you are either present hedonistic if you seek only pleasure and avoid pain, or present fated if you tend to accept that you cannot change the path that’s been laid out for you—your destiny. Most folks though tend to be future-oriented: either focused at a goal, working hard and resisting temptation because that’s what our religion, our education systems, those yardsticks of good virtues teach us or, again depending on what they believe in, live for the next-life, which begins when their mortal bodies pass away.
What struck me most was the speaker’s end statement: “many of life’s puzzles can be solved by simply understanding our own time perspectives and that of others.” I figured, it’s a straightforward rationalization though I never saw it that way before, and in that aha moment, I immediately knew which one I was.
I am probably more inclined to muse over what’s happened in my life, and its influence in my now. That’s why I write about long-gone memories, take pleasure in family gatherings and no-reason-at-all coffee sessions with friends, and have always re-read chronicles of my past. I love rediscovering what I used to be, especially with my quite rotten recollections of whatever versus my bestie’s amazing talent at remembering every teeniest detail, and quite surprised when I realize there are some things in me that never changed.
That’s why the past weekend, among this month’s weekends, will be unforgettable. Because Saturday I spent an entire afternoon in the heat that is U.P., my beloved university, and I laughed with college block mates, friends, as we skimmed our yearbook, playing spot the difference. But then, I did hear the tone of wistfulness from three other people when they said, “Mmm, seems like how it used to be, no?” Yep, I know what you mean.
And then there was super Sunday, the day marked with a trip to where Pa was interred, dragging Nina along for company, where I ‘introduced’ her to my kin, while I put a pot of purrty white flowers atop that slab of marble with Kiko’s fat signature, and we lit blue candles for everyone, me telling her the story about April, how it causes distress among the family, because this month often brings the passing of a relative, and by all accounts, someone’s demise, as well as the weekly death anniversaries lining up around this time, inevitably evokes—yep, you guessed it—the good old times. Ah, but reminiscin’ Sunday didn’t end there.
Evening brought Nina and me at Lizzie’s doorsteps—it was the last of a series of weekend get-togethers for our barkada. Liz is going away to the U.S. “for good,” and I put in close quotes for two reasons, because one, that’s our wish for her, that she finds life’s kindnesses there: love, reunited with family, a sort of goal-post for another exciting episode in her life; and two, because in the deepest of our hearts, I know they’d like to hear Lizzie say, screw it, I can’t, I’ll head back, and then it can be just as it was like before.
It being the despedida, the night seemed rather a short one, we tired ourselves out from laughing, with head-pounding joy brought by our more-than-usual number of bottles of San Mig which we knew would kill us with migraines the next day but didn’t care for, cramming 20+ years of affection in an awfully small space, teasing each other as to who would be the first to break into the inevitable waterworks. We had always been a happy bunch, but last night, I saw melancholy in everyone’s eyes: an unspoken wish, for not wanting Tuesday to come just yet. We’ll probably hate May for that.
Ah, but first I say goodbye to this month when, I’d say I was past positive. How bittersweet to be in this weekend’s moments, to be seemingly stuck for a moment in the past, wanting time to stop for a little while, and you want to trap it in between your palms, hoping you can bottle it, store it among your cherished possessions, make it tangible, so you can bring it out, uncap it, take a whiff of it, help you remember. Because you know that if it were so, then you can deal with the present, and what’s forthcoming. Past positive-ness helps me in that sense. Revel in the past if only to remind me to stay true to myself, or something like that. Thank you April, for giving me past positivity. I will never forget.
***
Pictured: Flower pipe cleaner art by G
Finally Dee 