I began wondering about change. Sitting in the back of a packed Ram Van, on my way into the great Manhattan, I sat listening to “Changes” by David Bowie. ‘Time may change us, but we can’t trace time.’ Looking back at my life, I am pretty sure I have changed, but how much have I changed? Sometimes I forget who I was back then, and sometimes I wonder what the hell I am doing and who I am now. There have been moments where I look around me, and wonder; who are these people, and what do they have to do with me? Even with people I have known for years, people I have spent many great times with. Are these people a real part of my life, or are the only people that are a part of my life the ones I knew and have known since childhood? How much do we get to change, and when does this changing stop?
It seems we will never stop changing, and this seems like a good thing. New adventures, new love, new interests, new places, new jobs, new friends, and potentially new family, but how much to we hold on to? Am I supposed to forget my past, or am I supposed to forget my future? Maybe change is searching for the balance between new and old, between what you have always had and what you’ve always wanted. Sometimes I feel like I am still in middle school, not emotionally, not academically, but just I feel like I was most like ME when I was then. But how can that be, I didn’t know who I was and I just spent time with friends and became who they wanted me to be. Not in a bad way, I just was creating a life for myself that fit in theirs. I love new things; I love the thrill of finding a new friend, of discovering a new book, or loving a new television show. There are so many things in life that make a person who they are and so many things that keep them changing.
Tracing time is impossible in the sense that would make emotional sense. I can remember that 7 years ago I was a freshman in high school, among people I barely new, and wondering what it would be like to graduate. And now, here I am, in college wondering what it would be like to graduate; what it will be like to be in the so called “real world” to be able to experience things on my own, and to finally become and change into the person I want to be. But tracing time, what does that even mean? To see where we were at some point in our lives, and how much we have changed since then. How much do we need to look back and see how far we’ve come? It’s nice to look back and remember “the good old days” and I am a lover of looking through old scrapbooks and reading old letters. But how much is too much? Change happens for a reason, and we are powerless to stop it. So I embrace the change, I look forward to new change, and I revel in the present and I enjoy the past.
