Nostalgia

Spending time back home never fails to send me on trips down memory lane.

Its been five years since I've graduated from high school. That's half a decade. That equates to slightly less than 1/4 of my entire life (21.7% to be anally exact). A lot has happened since then, and it almost seems like living in Bahrain was an entire lifetime ago. I bet this is amusing the over 30s of you out there, that a relative youngin has the nerve to go on about how old he feels.. to that I say: isn't it time to empty out that colostomy bag?

Alright, I'm sorry. That was harsh. I'm actually quite excited about growing up, becoming more mature and knowledgeable is quite gratifying. It's funny looking back at the past five years and realizing how dumb I was.. and I'll probably look back on this five years from now and realize how stupid I am at the moment, its kind of a depressingly never-ending kind of thing.

Getting back on topic: Its things like fishing through my bookcase and taking a look at all the novels I used to read back in high school. Its opening a drawer still stuffed with old IB notes that haven't been touched in five years. Its catching up with old friends, running into people you haven't seen in such a long time and realizing that most of them have jobs and some even have children (yeah, one guy in my class is actually a father now). Its visiting your high school for the first time in five years only to realize that things are not quite as you left them. Its seeing all those kids graduating (June is graduation season, of course) and reading through this year's yearbook, all that stuff about how old they feel and how they've just accomplished something tremendous and thinking.. that used to be me. Its remembering the old days with your buddies, all the things we used to get up to and all the childishness of days past. Its hanging out with my parents and realizing how different our relationship has become, how its become a horizontal one of friendship, rather than a vertical heirarchy of authority. Its seeing my siblings growing older and wiser, becoming interesting people that make me want to spend time with them, changed from the kids who's silliness I tried to avoid. Its thinking about things like domestic and foreign politics, personal finances, career decisions, future aspirations, religious beliefs.. just.. serious stuff.. things that have replaced the peaceful, innocent, oblivious contents of my childhood cranium. Its things like having to renew my driving license and getting a new 5-year UK visa because the old 5-year one expires next month. Its looking at old photos of senior year and seeing the difference. Its starting to think about what happens after I'm done studying. Its looking at myself in the mirror and spotting a few stray grey hairs (for fuck's sake, that's just unnecessary.. I'm only 22 and a half).

I think I lost my way there, I set out to write about random nostalgic moments I've experienced since I got back but ended up ranting about growing older. I guess they're inextricably linked, the older you get the more nostalgic you become.

I just read an article about this Haitian man living in Cuba who's 120 years old. Apparently he doesn't remember the first 40 years of his life. Amazing.