Memories of Today

Remember the first day your daddy dropped you off at school? Remember the day when you got your first beating from your strict teacher? Remember the kid whom you had a secret crush on in primary school and imagined how you would spend the rest of your life with them? Remember the report card which you were afraid to show your parents? Remember those harmless pranks you played on strangers? Remember those college ragging days and how you were scared of your seniors? Remember the first day you met your true love? I am sure the list will go on…

I have these sudden revelations about simple things and one such eye-opener was that today will never come back again! What you do today would probably be a memory tomorrow, but the day as such is gone. I know it is a mundane thought, but that led to more reflection as to how I would want to remember today. Not everyday is worth remembering, but it is up to us to make more such days memorable. It is like the photos you collect to cherish at a later date. How many photos you make shows how much you want to look back.

Have you ever felt that childhood memories are the strongest etched in our minds? I am not sure if it is just me or if it is the same for others too, but I can remember very clearly all those rainy days while we were out playing and those sunny days still outside not caring to listen to our mother’s pleas to stay indoors. Those days when going to your neighbour’s house unannounced was considered normal and staying the whole day including for all meals while playing with your best friend and still not hearing a word of complaint from his / her mother. Those were days of innocence and the memories are as fresh.

Fast forwarding a little bit, college days even though not as innocent, are still unbiased and hence I remember my first day in college in a city which I had visited so many times but never was a part of, so felt brand new to start a life there. Those unassuming days of making new friends for life and the joint pranks on the lecturers feel like it was just yesterday. All those were days when we never had to worry about what lay ahead tomorrow and hence today was all we had to worry about, I think that is probably the reason that we lived them to the full.

Fast forwarding to the current life, I feel like I have lost a lot of that innocence and ignorance in the race of existence. I feel like I am spending more time thinking of how I am going to make my tomorrow better and thus not living my today. I feel like in the quest of the unknown I am taking a lot of known for granted and hence not creating new memories. I need such revelations every now and then to remember those beautiful days and to remind me how today can be a beautiful memory with some effort.

After all, when we are old and have nobody around, it is only the memories that will stay on with us. Nobody can separate that from us not even ourselves. We can hardly forget certain things no matter how hard we try, so it is probably easier to keep the number of things to be forgotten lesser. There is no guarantee that tomorrow will be a better day, but it is up to us to make sure that our today is a better yesterday!