Memory Lane.

Im sure I’m not alone in my experience of the following sequence of events. The phone screen appears to be on. Yet somehow its purpose is forgotten. All the apps are glaring at you and flashing their provocative allure, the App Store notifications about your 8 month overdue updates seem somewhat appealing but still don’t have the prowess to completely draw you in. Instagram seems like a good option but you reached yesterdays feed only an hour ago. Perhaps its  a good time to read the 121 unread emails about takealots new daily specials. perhaps. maybe later. Maybe it would be a fun idea to swipe the screen right 3 times, left once and then back right again and see what page it falls on, and then choose the best option from there. Maybe. But first let me open instagram one more time, just to be sure. And for good measure also whatsapp, so that it doesn’t look like I’m dead, and my mom can get some reassurance from my last seen time.

But wait.

I have a camera! Let me open it and start pulling some abstract faces, I know my skin isn’t looking too great but I can contort my lips in this awesome new way, the pout is on form. Maybe ill get a cute picture, even if I decide to delete later. Ok so now my face is getting boring, maybe i should see how it looked earlier this year. Lets crack open the archives.

This is essentially what I’m getting at. Ive spent the last 2 days reminiscing through captured moments, small photographic pieces of evidence of what came before this uneqivocally unparalleled year. 

It was very interesting to reflect from where I sit today. Bald. Isolated. Pretty terrified. Vulnerable. In my day pyjamas.

Out of all the options: Facebook’s new shiny blue icon, Spotify’s auditory promise and even Medscapes guarantee of academic excellence, I still by far chose the best recourse in delving down memory lane. Looking back at our previous selves, our experiences, the people who we connected with and the selfies we took speaks so many lessons. For some it may disappointing, for some it may mean longing back to the past and for others just pure bliss in achievements and memories. Regardless of what it means I think what I mean to say is that our past shouldn’t dictate our feelings in this present moment, but perhaps that reflection can be a way to learn how to embrace this moment. Fully.

When we look back we realise the beauty of that moment which has already passed. What is so interesting is that we may in that moment not have realised its extraordinary liberation, and looking back now, in a time perhaps not as glamorous we realise its significance. 

As a pubescent balding quarantined boy i would probably pay lots of money to be taking Night club selfies with a friend, or taking well groomed wedding bathroom picture and posting gym selfies (Without Sanitizer). And perhaps I didn’t pay enough attention to how lucky I really was back then. So from this all it is my goal to make every picture, every flexing selfie and every pout one in which I was fully present. Fully grateful. Fully Present. Even if Corona was busy taking over the world.