Memories were stored in the attic. Old memories, wrinkled memories, torn memories that had been hastily taped back together. You ran your fingers over the faded paper, one at a time, reliving them each as you got to them. The polaroid pictures were yellowed with time, aging but never dying. These pictures were younger than you but older than the sky. Time came for them, but never swept them away.
To tuck memories safely away and revisit them when there was no more room for them in your head was a quiet kind of nostalgia. It would creep up on you as you paged through the photos, watching yourself grow in a matter of seconds. It would nibble away at your ears until you could hear the songs you used to play on your ipod. It would intoxicate your nose and tongue to trick you into reliving the fragrant mac and cheese your friend's mom used to make. It would overthrow your eyes, trapping you deep inside the photos you had once lost but now held so dear.
Your brain would weep with nostalgia, and you would wish to go back in time just to play a part in your memories once more.
Just once more.
In these pictures, you would smile, you would cry, you would pretend like you had no cares in the world.
You would laugh until you couldn’t breathe.
Looking at these pictures, you couldn’t breathe.
You couldn’t breathe.
It felt like you lost a part of yourself. Forgetting meant letting go, and you wished that you hadn’t let go of that You just yet. Sure, you had more memories to make with time, but you can’t truly appreciate something until it’s gone.
There’s art in living, but there’s emotion in memory.
You knew that this old life was gone now- it was time to continue building the one that mattered. Your old life was worth your tears, your smiles, the flutter of a heartbeat, but you knew that spending too much time looking at the past would cause you to forget the present.
But still, looking at the photos a little longer wouldn’t hurt.