I guess at the end, you start thinking about the beginning.

I was sorting through bunches of stuff in preparation for the move back at the end of the year, and while packing my drawer I remembered my farewell. The heaps of cards and gifts and genuine well-wishes, the frantic shuttling to and fro, the desperate hugs and furtive goodbyes. The phonecalls; the longest flight of my life. The love. The loves.

I think I grew up too fast. I think too far, too much, too deeply, and it's all effortless by now. Assimilated. I politicize everything; I trivialize nothing. I see in monochromatic hues where most others stop to admire the colours. The thing is, I never used to be this way. Sometimes I think it was all a blessing in disguise; an edge over people my age who were too simple, too sheltered, too naive to decode life and its meaning. But with all this purported knowledge came a price, one in retrospect I am unsure I am prepared to pay. I grew up too fast. I think too far, too much, too deeply...

I unfolded a star today. Unravelled it from its perfect, pretty state, and found I didn't know how to put it back together again.

***

"All memories are traces of tears." - 2046