#TBT
Facebook reminded me of the summertime in 2011, replaying pictures for me and stirring up some forgotten memories.
Looking at myself back then 8 years ago, I try to find the “me version” of today. Some parts of me died over the years, and some would no longer fit into who I’m now. Certain things had to go, and there are no regrets about this transformation. 2011 was a period of my life that was about a quiet existence, even though it didn’t feel like it at the time. It was a few years after my cancer treatment and surgeries had ended, shortly before I decided to join a group practice but way before my own private practice had exploded and I started looking for extra professional development too, and almost a year before this blog was born and some other writing and cooking passions that followed.
I remember that lazy Saturday afternoon spent at my friend’s house when she took these pictures. Looking back, I realize we were both in transition as our lives changed drastically shortly after that summer. It was the quiet time before the storms hit. Some of them, no matter how painful, were necessary to clear up the path for whatever comes next. Neither of us are on the other side of this transition yet, and we’re not even entirely sure when that initial “shake and stir” change molded into this longer transformation period.
I look at myself and know every single sorrow that lays ahead for me and a wall of pain that was heading toward my life like an unavoidable million-ton freight train, yet I still long for a tiny pocket of that quiet time, daydreaming as if I can go back and enjoy that summer all over again, with all its turbulent energy that seemed so overwhelming at the time and now feels so insignificant in my today’s eyes. I try to see what parts of me are still present in my life. I have this dress (it’s a beautiful emerald green), and it still fits. My hair is much longer than it’s in these pictures, and some whispers of grey are showing up in my ginger locks to remind me I’m growing old. Maybe in another 8 years I’ll look at this summer of 2019 as a time of change and quiet contemplation again, and I will be transformed into some yet unexplored version of me. Maybe I’ll look at my current pictures and see the parts of me that exist now but are still buried deep inside till that older me is able to unearth them and make a new life for myself out of all the today’s pains and sorrows, and out of all the future dreams I’ll have for myself in that next-stage life.
(What doesn’t change though is my rotten personality, and Facebook agrees with me on that. I’ll probably spew out some wiseass remark with my last breath.)
