The way we were

I am probably the only thing in my life that will be with me forever... Together with the jazz in my head and memories of the times gone by. But I guess this is also part of my self.

Everybody in this world is going different places, becoming different people. World that is my reality does not exist for so many people. What I see and do now, today, will be reduced to nothing more than a memory, it becomes a recording. And that recording of now plays differently in your memory than it does in mine.

If there aren’t people around who share the same memories as me, idea of who I used to be is only in my head. When I see an old friend of mine whom I met when I was 15, I know where he comes from. I remember the time we smoked those cigarettes, went to school parties and had that hiking trip. I know the good times we shared together and we will to some extent always remain those boys who had some fun at the age of 17.

Someone’s identity is not just who you are today. If I’ve known you for 15 years, this is who you are. This is why when 50 year old guys get together are still those same old boys they were 30 years ago. They know who they were. If I'd meet them now, for me they’d be just 50 year old guys. When a couple that has been together for 25 years looks at each other, I bet they also see each other the way they saw each other when they were young. They remember.

So when you lose the people you knew when you were young, you will always be the person you are now. You will only be who you were in your head.

Sometimes gaps in geography or lifestyle will keep you apart from your friends. And people change in time. Your friends will think of you as you were the last time they saw you.

I haven’t been home for almost a year now. I have changed. When I’ll meet my friends again, there might be a silent voice whispering in their head „you are less than the person that I think you are”. Probably my friends have changed too. Sometimes we don’t want our friends to change. Or we don’t want to admit they have changed and refuse to change our paradigm. Because we might not like the changes, we like the memories of what the person used to be like. So we stick to that.

I am a bit afraid that when I come back and meet my people, there is that voice. And although we won’t say it out loud, we feel something has changed. And we might not like the changes we have gone through. And I will miss you as you were and you will miss the old me.

Or maybe its all the same. I'll see you in July.