Footprints

ten

It's hard not to live in old memories. Sometimes they are so good that you wish you could go back in time and live them all over again. Most of the time, we don't even realize how great they are as we live them, they just slip through our fingers. But that's what life is; a collection of amazing memories, and of course, disappointing ones as well. Most of the time, we choose to forget the bad moments and remember the good ones. Even though if we try to forget the bad memories, we'll never forget the way we felt. But, ultimately, that doesn't matter; the good moments matter. And that is why we choose to hold onto them and forget about the rest.

The hard thing is pulling away from the old memories. By "pulling away," I don't necessarily mean forget, I mean move on. People need to pull away from the past, a lot of times because that part of their life is over. It's as simple as that, you can't cling to whispers of moments that are already gone. And it's perfectly fine, because all good things eventually come to end. Some things are meant to be in the past, and meant to be kept there. You have to move on and live your life. You have to make new, wonderful experiences, that are just as good as old memories.

I feel like I have done this, throughout the time I've been in Germany. I feel like I always compare things to last year, instead of enjoying this one. I feel a bit lost, from thinking of past years and imagining ones to come. In a way, it seems like I'm stuck. As if I'll never go back, as if that's too good to be true. It's not that I don't like it here, because I do. And I'll keep saying this. But I guess after all these months, I'm still not used to it. That's all. I could spend a lifetime somewhere, doing something, and still not be used to wherever I am, or whatever I'm doing.  

Perhaps I'm just waiting, as everyone does. People are always waiting for somethimg. We wait for things to happen, for better things to come along. We will wait our whole lives. And one day, we will all be old and dying, thinking of how much time of our lives that we spent waiting for fridays, weekends, summers; whatever it was that we waited for. And at that moment, we will realize how much we forgot to live. This is how I feel sometimes, and this is exactly what I don't want to happen. 

Somehow, someway, I have stop waiting for the unknown and start living.

• • •

The time has gone by so, so fast here, as everything does lately. I don't know what to think. Six months down, five to go. January and February went by in a blur- how is it already March? I'll be going back before I know it; but that does seem so, so long away. I can't wait to go back to my old ballet studio and get nervously excited for my first class after a year. I can't wait to cry, out of happiness, when I see my family and friends again. However, if I got the choice, I wouldn't go back yet. I want to stay here until August, because that's what I commited to.

Life isn't bad, though. Some days are really good; the days when I laugh with friends and genuinely have a good time. But I do hate it when I feel out of place, awkward; forgotten and...unnoticed.Those are the moments that stick out to me, in my brain, most. More than I did back home. But I believe that I need to let those moments go and enjoy the good ones. It's the little things that count, and I want to live in them.

I think I need to take my own advice. I've realized the advice we give others, are in fact, a lot of the time, advice we need to think about ourselves.