Change is the only constant

Featured on yesterday's season premiere of Grey's Anatomy...yeahhhhhh

"When we say things like "people don't change" it drives scientists crazy because change is literally the only constant in all of science. Energy. Matter. It's always changing, morphing, merging, growing, dying. It's the way people try not to change that's unnatural. The way we cling to what things were instead of letting things be what they are. The way we cling to old memories instead of forming new ones. The way we insist on believing despite every scientific indication that anything in this lifetime is permanent. Change is constant. How we experience change that's up to us. It can feel like death or it can feel like a second chance at life. If we open our fingers, loosen our grips, go with it, it can feel like pure adrenaline. Like at any moment we can have another chance at life. Like at any moment, we can be born all over again."

Words with an expiry date

I've been going through some old boxes and drawers lately, rummaging those deep corners that haven't seen daylight in years. It's amazing how many things we tend to keep over the years. Among the seemingly trivial things I pulled out are old cards, CDs, gifts (some unused), notes and letters that belong to what feels like another era. Cards and letters that bring back memories of young, happy, exciting, troubled, heart-wrenching times. Looking back, those words spoke of emotions that wanted to last forever, be it friendship, admiration, love or separation.

Today, they are merely expired words. Once meaningful, they are now but empty words on aging paper...or proof that one always moves forward...wading through and out of emotional turmoils of all kinds, and unless one were to stumble upon old written words, some memories are stuck in time, as they should be. Reading them again will trigger feelings that are sometimes mistaken as grief, sadness, regret even. But I believe it's actually a trick of the mind. Our memory briefly relives the emotions we felt when we first read those words.

And briefly, very briefly, we lose ourselves in time, right where the memories dwell. And what we feel can be compared to a ghost of feelings, nothing but remains of what was left behind. Because little did we know then that those words came with an expiry date. Past this, they lose all meaning and cannot touch anymore.