We Can Stay Like This or Go Go Go...

Nostalgia. Such a bitter-sweet emotion. I love the memories behind it. I love replaying moments in my head that I have forgotten and moments that I have treasured. This bitter-sweet feeling is so funny. When remembering things from a couple years' past, it's amusing to think how much I have changed since then. How much my surroundings have changed. I do have the same friends from the past, but my circle is different. I'm not close to those who I used to be close to. When I think of the memories I have of them/with them it makes me smile, but at the same time, it makes me sad.

Looking at pictures always bring a rush of these feelings. Looking through recent pictures of old friends are the real killers. When I look at them I laugh and smile because that is what I see and what I can feel when looking at these photographs, but at the same time, I wasn't there. Had it been two or three years ago, yes I would have been there. I might have been the one taking the picture, or heck, I might be the one in the picture, but today I am simply the viewer.

Along with nostalgia comes a wave of surprise. Oh how time has flown. I always joke that I have regressed in maturity levels since I was sixteen, sure, maybe I have in a way, but I have also matured at the same time. Contradiction? Most likely.

Sticking with the idea of looking at photographs of old friends in present times, I'm so glad to have met them. Everyone I have ever been close to/spent some significant amount of time with has shaped me, changed me, left me with some impression. All the people in my life have been and are building blocks to how I view life today....Well, that really doesn't explain how white-washed I am...but I think that it is mostly because when a Mexican Dad and an Asian Mommy make a chex mix child, that child is most likely going to be racially confused. Well...better to be racially confused than genderly or sexually confused! :D But, I hope my point is getting across. I would not change the life I have lived for anything. The mistakes I made, the regrets I have, those are all important too.

Looking at photographs of the past and present, I start to think about the things I have done in life, the things that we important to me. I will admit I went through a stage where appearance meant a lot to me, where for me it was based on who I could pretend to be, rather than who I truly was.

Today is a different story. I am attempting to stay grounded in who I am, who I have become. I hate using the term young woman for some reason. I still believe I am a girl. I don't know when I will transition into this "young woman" or "woman" stage of my life, but I hope I know when I'll get there. I don't even know what makes a woman. O_o No, not periods. Kinda like how what makes a man is his lack of emotions or some other stupid thing like that. If women have to have a stupid thing like that, I don't know what my take of that would be. Hmm, weird.

Point is, I'm ready to go. The bitter-sweet taste of nostalgia is good every now and again, but life does not have a pause button. Life goes on, it stops for no one, one moment blends into another, kind of like colors, and as all the colors of the world unify in a continuous chaotic motion, life will still continue.

As humans, we could "stay like this". We don't have to grow up. We can be completely unbending like a tree that has lived a century or more in a mighty wind. We can do that if we truly desire. Or we can "go go go". We can grow, we can learn.

As for me, I feel that I am most partial to the latter.

:]