Thursday, October 13, 2005

Memories

I am moving.

The new place is ready and I will be moving in soon. My present place belongs to my mother-in-law and I have always felt that we should have our own place. After going for balloting, around 9 months later, our new place is renovated and ready.

I took a few days leave to pack. It is surprisingly how much our stuff has grown in size in the last 2 years. While sorting through my stuff to pack away in boxes, I came across various stuff that I had very fond memories of.

Old photos, old bus tickets (back in the days when the buses still have bus conductors to issue bus tickets), old cinema tickets (where they actually write the cinema seat numbers on the tickets). Also I have not thrown away any of the Christmas/Chinese New Year/Valentine's cards that were sent to me by friends throughout the years. Those were back in the days when people actually sent out physical cards to people they care about. Flipping through these cards, I realised I have lost contact with most of these people, and I cannot even remember how some of them look like. But it sure bring back a lot of fond memories. In this digital era where such cards are all digitalised and are only kept for a short while online, I wonder how the people will remember such digital cards 10 years down the road?

Old diaries (where I secretly penned of puppy loves), old autograph books which I passed around to friends to pen a few words when we were about to separate, one when I was about to leave my Primary School after my PSLE, and one for my Secondary School after my O levels.

Old letters when people actually write physical letters instead of emailing them. Reading through some of them brings a smile on my face, and some makes my eyes all misty. Again, will we remember any of the emails that we sent today 10 years in the future?

And finally, some old items that I had very fond memories of, and had stubbornly refused to throw them away. A very old cassette player, my first cassette player that was given to me when I had wanted a Walkman at that time. When Walkman first came out, I wanted one very badly but then it was very expensive. In the end I was given a cassette player. I remember I was not very satisfied then, but then having something was better than nothing. I remember bringing it to a class excursion (cannot remember to which places) and was happily listening to it on the school bus then. A very old Parker pen, the very first pen I was given back in the days when people actually write with pencils. A very old mechnical pencil, the very first mechnical pencil given to me. There are so many other old items, each and everyone of them holding memories that I so dearly cherished.

I know of people who do not keep such items, and instead prefer to look to the future. But I always believe by not throwing away such items that we will realise we have to cherish every single second of our present lives, to live life to the fullest, so that one day when we flipped through such items in the future, we will only have sweet memories.

I am sure feeling nostalgic at the moment.