Style: N/A.
Statement: While writing this piece, I felt a wistful longing for past moments I wish I could relive. However, it is best to focus on the memories one can make now. Some good memories remain forgotten, but days of sunshine are always something to wait for.
The day I started kindergarten, time was already ticking. We stood in straight lines by the door, backpacks too big dangling on our shoulders. The sky was gray, yet clouds danced whimsically above us as if taunting us, fine strands of cotton taking us to places we could never go. Glass windows stood behind us, doodles of flowers in frost. We spent five minutes watching the clouds drift from one place to the next, slow swishes against a pristine canvas. Five minutes to watch the spread-winged crows glide across the expansive blue. It was a scene from a distant land, marveling at the two-toned sky, painted with perfect shades of evening.
Wide-eyed stares scanned the endless sky, trailing to the end of the farthest field, where caws were heard, crisp like bitter winds. The caws eventually faded and gave way to a humming silence. All that could be heard was the rustle of leaves against the gentle breeze, an ode to silence, a psithurism whispering words only nature would understand. Finally, the door opened. Teachers greeted us and the effect was imminent. The magic was over. In those days, five minutes felt like hours and hours on end.
Time never slows down for anyone. Things I thought I would always remember spill like raindrops, falling out of my grasp and onto the blacktop. Thoughts fade slowly, a slight sprinkle of hours, a downpour of days, a deluge of months. Years flood one after another, another, and another. Until one of these days, I find myself dreaming of an ocean’s worth of little moments. When did this happen before?
The present moment hits me like an unstoppable metal truck. It runs into the past, sending waves of a new reality forward. Just as the present washes to shore, it recedes into gentle foam, drifting from my mind until it disappears completely into the past. The instant it becomes the past—the split second— I begin to forget. And once I forget, there is no way to remember.
I only faintly recall what caused me to smile on days of sunshine. Each beam stays a precious feeling reminiscent of childhood, a feeling of comfort like no other, falling from my grasp yet never fully leaving my palm. I hardly dream of the wispy, dancing clouds that made me laugh in kindergarten. I can't remember the victorious feeling of finishing an important task. There is no way to recover the warmth of a beautiful moment. Only that time ran with memories in hand, pacing relentlessly past the most triumphant and most difficult days, scaling mountains of relief and pressure. It swims through rivers of longing yet continues through skies of bliss. Time stops for no one; it runs, runs, and doesn't pause.
The days I feel the present is leaving me for the past, I am reminded that something is always waiting for me. The coming days of happiness remind me of that moment in kindergarten. Moments when nothing happens at the same time as everything does. Moments when just for a second, everything falls still.
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