Memories Are Made Of These
nos·tal·gi·a, n. - a bittersweet longing for things, persons, or situations of the past. - American Heritage Dictionary
I don’t know what bit me but I found myself rummaging through my old things a couple of weeks ago. What I really wanted to do was gather all my old pocketbooks (horror and mystery, mostly) and donate them to St. Joseph’s College’s library (my alma mater). I never really got around to the donating part. But I was able to put all the pocketbooks in four big plastic bags and set them all aside.
You see, what happened was, I got sidetracked by a lot of old stuff I found stacked, filed, stowed in the cabinets, drawer, bookshelf, even inside the pocketbooks. Old pictures, old greetings cards. Old letters. Old address books/phonebooks. A scrapbook. There were clipped articles of things that interested me then.
I can’t believe that I kept some of my notebooks from high school. I even have a binder covered by cut-outs of superheroes from comicbooks. I also found my trigonometry book of tables (?), its cover peppered with stickers of Daimos. I never thought that I had so much mementoes from the past. Even the programmes from the plays I watched way back elementary were there, in a thick folder, along with ticket stubs and premiere tickets from movies dating back 15 plus years ago.
So much junk and trash, one might think. But I never really thought of them as such. Because if I did, I would have thrown all of them. As a matter of fact, I had a hard time what to discard and I ended keeping them still! How could I just throw away things that reminded me of someone, of some place, of some thing that somehow mattered to me at some point in time? Then I realized I am becoming an old sentimental coot. (So what? Heh.)
A lot of memories, most of them good, came back to me. The feeling was so bittersweet I felt I was really aching to go back in time if it were only possible. The birthday cards from my folks and friends reminded me of simpler times and simple happiness. The algorithm book peppered with Daimos stickers reminded me of how I aced high school trigonometry and failed my algebra (try to figure that one out!). Ah… the plays I’ve seen (Agnes of God (UP Rep), Kahapon, Ngayon at Bukas (PETA), M. Butterfly (Repertory Phils. and UP), Moose Murders (Repertory), etc.) reminded me how excited I was watching the actors on stage. The tickets to the premiere nights I’ve attended reminded me how I never won any prize during the raffle held before they screened the movie. And yes, one thing that really beats them all… the high school yearbook.
That dreadful high school yearbook. I never liked it. I look unhappy in my annual picture. Too serious for my own good. Flipping through the pages, I see faces of my classmates and wondered what became of them. And I keep on thinking how bad we look on these photos. Even those who were pretty didn’t look pretty at all. And I remember…we did not have a professional photographer to take our pictures. It was our Algebra teacher (his girlfriend was the one who put terrible make up on all of us) who took our pictures, immortalizing the icky look we have on all of our faces.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that I still kept my old sketchpad with me… I will post my sketches soon. For my amusement. (And probably yours, as well.)
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A repost. I blogged this on May 17, 2007 on my soon-to-be defunct friendster account.
I don’t know what bit me but I found myself rummaging through my old things a couple of weeks ago. What I really wanted to do was gather all my old pocketbooks (horror and mystery, mostly) and donate them to St. Joseph’s College’s library (my alma mater). I never really got around to the donating part. But I was able to put all the pocketbooks in four big plastic bags and set them all aside.
You see, what happened was, I got sidetracked by a lot of old stuff I found stacked, filed, stowed in the cabinets, drawer, bookshelf, even inside the pocketbooks. Old pictures, old greetings cards. Old letters. Old address books/phonebooks. A scrapbook. There were clipped articles of things that interested me then.
I can’t believe that I kept some of my notebooks from high school. I even have a binder covered by cut-outs of superheroes from comicbooks. I also found my trigonometry book of tables (?), its cover peppered with stickers of Daimos. I never thought that I had so much mementoes from the past. Even the programmes from the plays I watched way back elementary were there, in a thick folder, along with ticket stubs and premiere tickets from movies dating back 15 plus years ago.
So much junk and trash, one might think. But I never really thought of them as such. Because if I did, I would have thrown all of them. As a matter of fact, I had a hard time what to discard and I ended keeping them still! How could I just throw away things that reminded me of someone, of some place, of some thing that somehow mattered to me at some point in time? Then I realized I am becoming an old sentimental coot. (So what? Heh.)
A lot of memories, most of them good, came back to me. The feeling was so bittersweet I felt I was really aching to go back in time if it were only possible. The birthday cards from my folks and friends reminded me of simpler times and simple happiness. The algorithm book peppered with Daimos stickers reminded me of how I aced high school trigonometry and failed my algebra (try to figure that one out!). Ah… the plays I’ve seen (Agnes of God (UP Rep), Kahapon, Ngayon at Bukas (PETA), M. Butterfly (Repertory Phils. and UP), Moose Murders (Repertory), etc.) reminded me how excited I was watching the actors on stage. The tickets to the premiere nights I’ve attended reminded me how I never won any prize during the raffle held before they screened the movie. And yes, one thing that really beats them all… the high school yearbook.
That dreadful high school yearbook. I never liked it. I look unhappy in my annual picture. Too serious for my own good. Flipping through the pages, I see faces of my classmates and wondered what became of them. And I keep on thinking how bad we look on these photos. Even those who were pretty didn’t look pretty at all. And I remember…we did not have a professional photographer to take our pictures. It was our Algebra teacher (his girlfriend was the one who put terrible make up on all of us) who took our pictures, immortalizing the icky look we have on all of our faces.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that I still kept my old sketchpad with me… I will post my sketches soon. For my amusement. (And probably yours, as well.)
---------------------------------
A repost. I blogged this on May 17, 2007 on my soon-to-be defunct friendster account.
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