Nostalgic Hearts Think Alike

La Maison en Petite Cubes: A Metaphor for My Sorrows

I've had a short life, granted I've been renting this body on Earth for a measly 18 years, but there's things that are ageless. That warmth in the dead center of my chest, spreading all over to the sound of good fortune. The feeling down in my gut similar to sinking into an abyss when bad news hits like a marble slab aimed right at my heart. The twinge of fury that sparks the full-fledged burning of my mind and soul as an injustice is committed. These feelings along with the memories of the events that caused them are things everyone will keep with them for the rest of their lives.

I haven't built a house yet. I haven't gotten married. I don't have grand-kids. I don't smoke a pipe and sit in front of my TV to watch late night comedies and eat fish accompanies with wine. I don't have a scuba diving suit. I don't live on the top of a stacked shack. I don't know what it's like to lose everyone I love and stay alone in a remote area, sad.

I do know, however, what it's like to look at something and have my past pop out like a jack-in-a-box to take me by pleasant surprise.

I've felt that sweet and sour tingle where my heart should be beating at a steady beat. The disappointment of knowing that some things are better forgotten, and others dangerously depressing when remembered. The good memories are always the ones that make you feel like you're being choked from the inside and left to tremble in solitude at the realization that those days are long gone.

The mediocre memories just make you yawn a little, or smile and say "Damn, I want to do that again," or, "Wow, I never realized how retarded that was!!!"

I feel like the old man sometimes.

I look back through the layers of memories, peeling back the newest to relive the oldest and fondest ones. The deeper I go back into my mind and heart, the more I feel the familiar tightness in between my ribcage. Coming back up to the present, surfacing in the today of yesterday and tomorrow, there are no memories to live on. Just living through the solitary dinner date with two wine glasses.

Just living.

Just feeling.