I’m usually one to live in the moment. Not necessarily in a “living life to the fullest” way, but more in an “I won’t look at the past and I certainly can’t look at the future” kind of way. It’s something I have realized about myself in recent months, but the first time I ever thought about it was a few years ago. I was part of a group that was really into the enneagram, or the nine type personality system. As I struggled to settle on my ‘type’, someone posed the following question to me:
“How do you live, relative to time?”
Maybe I’m just small-minded, but it wasn’t easy to answer. Her question was followed up by three options, with three of the nine ‘types’ falling under each answer: time relative to the past, in the present, or towards the future. I’ll spare you the long-winded explanation of all of the options (or you can scroll to the bottom) but I orient to the present. I’m only able to handle what’s in front of me and most of my actions, and reactions, are based in my current situation. In the same vein, I hardly ever reminisce and I doubt my friends would call me the “nostalgic” kind.
This became more and more apparent after I moved across the country. I was completely set on making new memories and creating a new life that I rarely, if ever, spent time reminiscing on things. It’s something I have now grown to dislike about myself, my memory or lack thereof. I find a lot of my life to be one giant blur of people, places, things, good days, bad days (some of which, unfortunately, are the easiest to recall). I spend so much mental energy focused on the “right now” that I truly can’t recall what happened to me a month ago. Even when people ask “what’s new with you?” or “what have you been up to?”, my genuine answer is “I’m vibing”, mostly because I wouldn’t be able to recount much anyways.
The other night, I had this really odd urge to look at old photos in my camera roll. It’s abnormal for me to do for a lot of reasons, one being everything we just talked about and another being that I can barely put together an Instagram photo dump that goes back further than last weekend. But I scrolled down, way way down, back a couple of years and just sat there with them, all of my old memories. It was a photo of my second cousin, maybe aged two or three, looking completely dissociated while wearing a Mickey Mouse costume. It was a photo of my mom’s cats right after we adopted them, twisted together like a furry yin and yang. It was Snapchat videos of my now estranged dad and me, with one of those filters that gives you a baby face and a rainbow rattle.
Going through it all felt like watching an old dream play out in your hands, inherently familiar yet strangely out of body. I know all of those moments had happened to me, or at me; I was, in fact, holding them, memorialized in my iPhone 13. But it pained me, to know how much of it I allowed myself to forget.
I probably just long for the way things used to be, in terms of remembering. I envy the generations before ours, their photo albums filled to the brim with printed Kodak photos. Keeping your touch to the edges only, taking care not to smudge the moments frozen in time. It’s exhausting, for myself at least, to think about wanting to reminisce on something and being forced to use my phone more than I already do. I shouldn’t make the excuse that having a physical copy would motivate me to remember more, but it sure would help. I think the art of the photo album (or even just printing your photos) takes a certain amount of care and focus, care and focus I so desperately desire to have.
As I get older, the problem remains that I will continue to have new experiences and collect new memories, but my fear is that my past will become crowded and eventually escape me altogether. I guess I’ll just have to make more room.
There are the types orient to the past, wrapped up in nostalgia and using past experiences to dictate current/future emotions and situations (4, 5, 9). On the other side, there are types that look to the future, goal-oriented and constantly in motion (3, 7, 8). And then there are those, like myself, who align in the present (1, 2, 6). For more fun writing on the enneagram, read Mari’s piece here.
Sh*t I Can’t Stop Thinking About
Let’s pretend I didn’t promise in January that I’d write every month this year and that it isn’t September. Out of all my silly (and not so silly) little goals, my most realistic is reading 20 books, although I’m desperately playing catch up. My most favorite read so far, and one I keep recommending to everyone: Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. 10/10!
This isn’t a formally researched thought, but I believe that artful choreography as the epicenter of music videos is back, baby! Re: Troye Sivan and Will West in that one part of Back to 74. To be fair, they are also beautifully shot and directed, but I feel a resurgence of technical and emotional dancing on the rise!
The overwhelming depression that comes with knowing that I’ll never be able to consume every movie, every book, ever museum, every thing that the world has to offer. (Recently spurred on by discussing One Piece: the two decades of multimedia content and storylines that are continuing to this day, and the live-action adaptation that I watched on Netflix last night while *medicated* on my couch.)
This guide to modern etiquette in a post-COVID society.
I have a lot of opinions on the fact that the newest Olivia Rodrigo album opener is inspired by a Joan Didion quote, but, nonetheless, it’s stuck in my head.
My birthday celebration this year was Sonny Angel themed, and I received 23 boxes (and counting) from all of my friends. It may be silly, but those angels are a reminder to me of my friends and their support in my weirdest tendencies (like having a toy obsession). My heart goes tender thinking about each person that showed up just to say hi and my dearest friends who make every day so much more fun just by being around them.
My friend Raelyn enthusiastically shared this piece on obsession with me awhile back, mostly due in part to its title, which funnily enough is shares the name of this section of the newsletter.
I did the Tiktok trend where you type “{your name}core” into Pinterest, and this is what I got: