Time capsules

My letters to my father when he was still in the US... I refuse to divulge their contents here.

For two days now, our house is undergoing a major upheaval. My mom decided to clean out some cabinets and throw stuff we don't need away. Naturally, this involves a lot of dust - which is making my allergies rise up in rebellion - and sorting out. So, in the course of cleaning out, we uncovered a ton of stuff which were also buried in our minds. In other words, we clean forgot about them. But, looking at all these stuff, I am suddenly transported to another dimension - the past.

My unimpressive Candy magazine "collection"

Comics and K-Zone issues we bought over the years

I found my old identification cards all the way back to Kindergarten (which I will never be bothered to post here), the program guide during my piano recital, cutesy class pictures, and even letters to my dad when he was still in the US (which I, also, will not be bothered to post here... please be content with envelopes); he saved all of them and, reading back, they were funny-I-don't-know-why-I-wrote-that kind of letters. Just leafing through the pages of my favorite kids' magazine produced a lot of remembrances. There were exclamations (e.g. "Hey, Nintendo DS didn't exist back then!" or "Look, there's AJ Perez on the cover!" or "This is the magazine I brought during the staff meet and greet!") and questions (e.g. "This game was so popular back then... Why is it forgotten now?" or "Look at Lindsay Lohan in this picture. She's so innocent! What happened to her?").

A pastel painting I did in high school

My debut box

But, most of all, the question that needs to be asked is, "How much change did I go through since then?" It may be decades, a few years, months, weeks, or even days since I last held those things. In that incredibly short time that has passed, what lessons did I learn? What failures have I gone through? What ambitions have I achieved? How many notes have I played? How many pictures have I taken? What awards have I received? What have I learned thus far? How many books have I bought... and read? How far have I gone in this journey called life? These moments lead me to reflect on the questions above. But, seriously, I can't answer all of them. I don't know how far, because I never keep track. I'm not one to write down everything I've done in a day for the sake of remembering - that's because some of the stuff I do are downright stupid; in short, things I don't want to reminisce about. Everyday is a new day and I don't need to write stuff down. The materials I leave behind will do the talking for me.