Have You Ever?

Have you ever felt this way?

Ever felt something stuck at the back of your throat, maybe a little further up to where your nasal cavity begins, when you sit on the bus with your headphones playing out old familiar tunes that so seamlessly match the places you pass by?

Every beat, every word, every note, every crescendo and every falsetto falls into their appropriate spots. They belong to the pavement you once threaded on, to the couch you reclined in, to the traffic lights you tried to beat and to the stairs you tried to scale. They belong to the entrances of places you waited at, to the faces you spoke to and to the words that fell on your ears then.

And then you start to conjure.

You’d conjure images that aren’t clear. Blur and fuzzy ones that have such significance you try to hold on and let go at the same time. Images that you see with your eyes closed. Images of faceless people, of whom you still recognize. Images of things that seemed unimportant then, but are of utmost importance now. Images that replay over and over again, just like how you’d sub-consciously play the same songs each time you pass the same place.

And then you begin to smell.

You’d smell something devoid of smell. Nothing fragrant, nothing pungent, but it’s a smell nevertheless. You feel it entering your nose, down your throat, pass your esophagus, through your intestines and into your guts. It churns and boils down there, and your breathing gets heavier. You wonder if you’re angry, or sad, or happy, or all three at the same time, to smell it. It’s a familiar smell, like the familiar place you pass by with the familiar song in your ear. You try to put your finger on it, to find out what it is, but you can’t. You just can’t define it.

And then comes the chills.

Tingling sensations in your spine that send shivers through your entire back. It forms from the back of your neck and slowly creeps down. The lower it goes, the faster it becomes. And when it finally dissipates, you long for it to happen again. Maybe because you like how it must have felt. Maybe because it happened before when you were excited and nervous then. Maybe, but you don’t really know.

And all these sum up to one word – memories. A phenomenon I can never quite grasp. Why do memories exist? Why do the ones that shouldn’t stay, stay, and ones that should, don’t? I guess it’s because bad as some may seem, it matters to you one way or another. So you hold on and so begin the love-hate relationship you now have with them.

Memories – they make me who I am and you who you are. Don’t fight them, embrace them with arms wide open and you might just find out who you are and where you belong.

Have you ever felt this way?

‘Cos I did.