Dear friend,
As the gentle winds of nostalgia whisper through my thoughts, I find myself drawn to reach out to you once more. As my mind wants to rest for eternal days my heart yearns to write you these lines, so you won’t forget me, perhaps for another so and so years. I know a while has passed since we last exchanged words, but still, I have some things weighing down on my heart. The future seems fleeting and so I wish to walk with you, for a bit on the vacant streets of past times, weaving the tapestry of our memories into words that may linger in the endless halls of time.
I wish to remember. What we were and what we had. And indeed, I do.
I remember when I was 6. We met on the playground down the street. It was a loveless, rusty construction from the Eighties, where we first met. Me, in my oversized T-shirt and bleached out baseball cap, leftovers of my older sister that had been passed onto me. And you, in your dirty pants that had been repaired with colourful patches one too many times. Never will I forget when you first looked at me and just threw a handful of sand in my face. I was shocked and angry, but still, I laughed. After that, a sand fight broke out and that day we played in the sandbox as long as our parents would let us, until they were too tired, and we were too dirty to stay any longer.
I remember when I was 11. The day you confessed to me about the boy you liked in our class. You said you had that weird feeling the adults called love, for the first time. That day we huddled together in a corner of the schoolyard and wrote the first love letter we both had ever seen. It was so strange and new and yet so exciting and adventurous. When the boy found the letter on his desk in class, he immediately knew it was yours and called you out in front of the whole class. Never have I seen you more embarrassed. I followed you as the bell rung and you were running out of school and hid from the world in the climbing frame on the playground down the street.
I remember when we were 17. We used to sit there on the window still of your childhood bedroom. Our refuge, cheap wine from the supermarket down the street poured into plastic cups. We thought us so mature, wanting to climb the mountain of adulthood in a day and less. We knew so much yet so little about us, the world and life itself.
We sat there smoking cigarette after cigarette, downing the wine in our plastic cups, wanting to feel a little older, a little wiser, a little less lost. The cigarettes made us dizzy, the booze made us brave. We sat there dreaming about what crazy chapters we could add to our lives, wanting to write the climax of our stories before even thinking about an introduction.
Sitting there, we dreamt and laughed through more than one night, until we could see no more visions for our future and the sun came up to put us to sleep.
And as we sat on the window still of your childhood bedroom and I layed my head down on your shoulder, I thought about the sandbox on the playground down the street.
As we got older, we lost each other, drifting apart and yet I am sitting here now, thinking about our depart. If only we could have gathered the sand of time in our palms, slowing its relentless flow and linger a little longer in the warmth of memories. Thinking back, I wish now we had had more of those moments we shared. Had thrown more sand, written more love letters and smoked more cigarettes as the sun rose.
I once read that smoking a cigarette would cost you 7 minutes of your life. But I would gladly give you those minutes every day, every time, just to stay a little longer with you on the window still of your childhood bedroom, thinking about the playground down the street.
As I write these words, I am reminded that in the vast desert of time, our lives are but the fleeting footprints in shifting sands, soon to be erased by the winds of change. Each memory I hold, each moment we shared, becomes all the more precious as I feel the sand running relentless through the hourglass of time. I’m uncertain of what the future holds, still I feel lighter when I think about that someday our paths will cross once more, perhaps not in this life, but in the echoes of our shared laughter, that will linger on the window still of your childhood bedroom. With each passing day, I hold onto these memories tighter, knowing that soon they will be all that remains.
Farewell, my dear friend, until we meet again, on the playground down the street.