therapy

» campfires

The fire glistened in front of our eyes as she drummed onto the tiny ukulele. A sweet song echoed and danced as the marshmallows span on a stick.

"Want to share stories?" I asked her when the song ended.

"Sure. You go first since I'm drawing a blank here."

"Okay. Well, you know how you play a song on repeat when you just found it? You just discovered a song and you can't get enough of it. You memorize the lyrics, you search up covers of it, you play it on repeat over and over again—till you drown out the meaning of it, and only focus on how at 1:07 the beat slightly shivers. Or you don't even focus on that. It's just a numbing melody that drowns out what you're doing, till you start to close your eyes and fall asleep, whether it's morning or late at night. Isn't that like life? Or a passion? When you discover something new, you rejoice in it. You analyze every inch of that passion; you search from one end of the Internet to the other on how to perfect it. How do I become a better artist? History of painting. Videos of different techniques in painting. Type, type, type. Then when you constantly continue at it—that passion starts to burn out. It starts to falter and quiver. Maybe like that flame. It'll eventually burn out when the waves rise on their feet and come crashing down. You leave it alone, collecting dust and old memories. One day, you walk down memory lane and you stumble across it. Trip, fall, scratch your knees on the way down. You feel the emotions of that lost passion. The pain of constantly trying and failing. It's a bittersweet moment of bruised knees and discovered treasure. You pick it up, bit by bit. It becomes a numbing thing—it remains in your life, doesn't disappear for another few years. It's always there in the back of your mind, not locked away in a tight treasure chest.

You know? After you lose touch with a song, after squeezing every bit of melody in it, your life gets a little sad. You don't notice this because you're trapped in the mindset of 'wow, can't believe I replayed that song 152 times. So tired of it.' But trust me, a few months later when it comes up on the radio, you smile. You genuinely smile and then go into your music store and download it. You don't repeat it anymore; you've learned your lesson.

What I'm trying to say is that we are constantly getting tired of where we are and what we are doing. Yet we don't know that when we're old and need a cane to walk, we're going to talk to our grandchildren about the songs we listened to (which are going to be 'old' in the future) and how we adored painting. They have impacted our lives, even if they were 'tiring' back then. All those built-up memories will soothe us down to sleep even when we're having a midlife crisis. We shouldn't label current memories 'worthless' or 'tiring' because they will come up in a few years. We might not remember them but we will know the feelings that swam in our veins."