Memories

The app’s support had stopped many Android versions ago, but still it had persisted on every phone I had for the past 10 years through sheer stubbornness on my part. I would transfer the app and it’s memory every time I got a new phone. I’d keep the data backed up regularly, so when one of my old phones stopped switching on, I still lost only a few posts of the app. This was a digital diary I kept through school, through college, through changing cities, and friends, and houses. It had so many things there that were completely pointless, yet precious enough for me to have taken the time to store. I kept photos I clicked, of myself and of the things around me. Every trip I went to, every new hairstyle I experimented with, every dish I made and how it turned out. I saved audios of myself talking about my day, about my dreams, singing very badly on days I couldn’t sleep. There were even voices of my friends, saying hi, sometimes saying nothing at all, just a minute of white noise when I was somewhere.
Last year I changed my phone. This time whatever I tried, I couldn’t get the app to work there. I could have backed up and extracted all the photos and audio messages I had, but I didn’t. For some reason, it didn’t matter anymore, there was nothing there I thought I would miss in a practical sense, so the phone, the app, and it’s memories went away. There are days now when I remember little things, which I want to open the diary and see, but it’s not there anymore. The greeting cards and letters I have saved over the years are safe in a house I no longer live in, probably collecting dust. I haven’t had the urge to collect these small things these days, feeling like I’d either remember them without something tangible there to remind me, or it won’t be important enough. Is this what growing up feels like? Was I living in fear all these years, that I’ve at last grown out of? Maybe I was, hoarding each second of happiness so I’d have something in my hands when nothing remains. Maybe I am living more in the present now, rather than living in, and living for my memories. I can forget about that little thing that made me smile today. It will happen again.