Seeking Solace

Memories

I opened up the boxes and the smell of memory wafted into my nostrils. Smell when I was in college, when I was in secondary school, when I was teaching... They were all marked with different brands and scents of shower foam used then. For those really puzzled, I kept many boxes and I place anything that is significant to me inside them. I call them My Memory Boxes. It all started when I realised that age is catching up and I am beginning to lose the capacity up there for memories. I don’t want to let them go. Knowing how forgetful I am, I kept journals after journals, boxes after boxes. Yah, laugh at me for being senile, but I need to do something to capture them.

Every once in a blue moon when I tidy my room up, I would open the boxes and recollect the days in the past. (That explains why I always take twice the time to finish my tidying, something mum absolutely abhors.) I am beginning to think that my memory is getting distorted. I saw this fan-like thing that I had from college. We were told to fold a blank piece of paper into a fan-like thing, write our names on the side of the fan and pass it around. Everyone would then write what he or she felt about you on a separate side such that no one can see what others wrote. I read it over and over again and thought to myself how popular I was then. Nevertheless, I thought that wasn't the case and the thought kept pushing its way from the back of my head and turned into images in front of my eyes. I thought of how pi1 tou2 laughed at me with snide remarks, how I stupidly laughed back when I know I was taken advantage of. I wondered where my strength went to then. The memories were getting distorted and I could well imagine myself smiling at these memories fondly ten years down the road when I should be sneering at the situations then. So, where does that leave me. I wish I wouldn't distort the holistic truth by remembering events I wished they would turn out to be. That would be utterly gross.

I saw the fan that Mr Blah gave me when I was teaching few years back. Eww.. bleah.. There is no guy in the world that dinguses me as much as he did. Seriously, I felt like puking. The question is, why then is that fan and the note doing in my precious precious memory box, taking up a space in which more memorable items could use? Very good question. I have no idea too. Maybe I have, but it is a huge blow to my ego having to admit that I don't want anyone to know in future when I recollect my past that I have always been a zero. It could be because of that; it could also be because of me. I did enjoy the friendship before anything happened. So, it is something worth remembering anyway. So far, my memory has been real unpleasant. Can't help it, I have this tendency to seek solace from things that bring me a rush of sadness.

I traced the side of the membership card of a deceased. I am no thief; it just happened that the card came in a plastic bag together with my 15th birthday gift my juniors presented me. A further dig into the memory box shows a scrap note with many contact numbers an the words Jing Ying Bu Dui scrawled in han yu pin yin. Wonderful memories, sweet recollections. But the tinge of sadness still overcomes me. There are so many things left unexplained in my life that I switched routinely among them to seek for answers and make my life more melancholic.

I closed my memory box and moved on to the three huge parcels of greeting cards I colleted over the past few years. That was when Kenneth strolled into my room and exclaimed: “Wow.. aren’t you popular?” I had the urge to reply him with: “Those dead are dead and those alive don’t bother to keep in contact anymore.” But I seriously did not want to scare him by sounding as if I was possessed by a 88-year-old nanny. I just advised him to make more friends. Speaking of lousy advice… There were at least 200 cards in total. I read some of the cards that I have forgotten and saw her card. Another one. Why must life be so full of shit? Suddenly, I felt sick. Sick physically, yes, sick mentally. A bout of coughs and sneeze drowned me in echoes. That triggered my mum’s insistent nagging. Her voice soon became background noise as I silently match drumbeats to her naggings. Evil me.

As usual, I closed my door and went out to have my dinner, leaving all the tidying to tomorrow. I have too much time on hand. Too much. Even tidying up makes me wonder about my life and its purposes. What should I do apart from shopping to stop all these brain activities?

Jacqueline
11:36 AM