Don’t look back in anger
After I got home last night, it seems someone - probably Dad or Halief - had dug out my old photo albums from senior year in high school and stacked them neatly on my desk. Ah, memories: from just mucking about in class to the field trip to Bandung to the spray-can frenzy of graduation and prom night. Rather weird seeing myself seven years and about 20 kilograms ago, back when my stomach and just about everything else was still flat.
I tend to cringe whenever I see old pictures of myself. High school was just another in a seemingly never-ending series of awkward phases. Any photogenic cuteness I ever had ceased to exist at five years of age, thus whenever I see old photos I get the urge to go back in time and slap my younger self for looking like a snivelling twit. It’s almost unfathomable I never got beaten up all this time. Occasionally scared shitless yes, but never had the shit kicked out me. Or maybe I’m subconsciously just blocking out all the trauma. I bet that many years from now, I’ll be sorting through old pics and telling my kids, "When you’re 26, I hope you don’t look like this dumbass."
Anyway, it was strange seeing everyone back then, with the knowledge of where we all are now. Lately it’s like every other week there’s someone from high school who’s marching down Matrimony Lane, and I get constantly reminded of my own predicament. Thanks a lot, fellas, it’s not as thinking about this stuff doesn’t go on in my head for a sizeable chunk of my conscious day. I keep wondering whether I’ll be able to fulfill the kind of future that everyone else is taking the plunge into. Just gotta use that fear to drive me on to whatever success I have in mind, I guess. I might even make that scrawny kid in those photographs proud.
