Today is the fourth day of my one week's Hari Raya holiday. Finally, I am back at my hometown after more than a month staying in KL. College life is awesome, but occasionally I still miss my parents. It feels great for being able to be with my family these few days, yet sometimes a bit boring but seriously I don't know why.
Yesterday evening, I was strolling in the park behind my house. As I stepped my foot onto this realm of absolute silence and wilderness, I had accidentally released the seal that safeguards my childhood that is close in becoming oblivion. Slowly bit by bit, sunken memories started to pour into my head.
I still remember visiting this particular park for the first time in the age of 7 with my parents. At that time, we had just moved into Bandar Laguna Merbok, a newly established residential area in the northern region of Sungai Petani town. I remembered that there are many unoccupied houses in the street that we lived in. The whole residential area is so quiet, yet so scary in those days. You can hardly see someone at somewhere in there unlike now, where you can still feel the presence of others even though it is very quiet and peaceful. The park is still new and the facilities are in well condition. Bird of paradise flowers flourish in the reflexology garden and the grass is greener in those days. I liked playing in the park when I was still a kid at that time.
However, due to improper management, the park was unable to retain its good condition. Most of the facilities such as the ones used for fitness and exercise purposes have undergone vandalism and cannot even function properly. As a result, nobody ever gather around there anymore. The benches are now a piece of wood left. The playground is in ruins. The flowers had long died. Briars and weeds grow all over the places. Now, it becomes very dangerous to walk in bare foot around the park. Mud patches started to form in several places around the park. It has been 11 years. The park that had once been part of my childhood has changed. Not only the park, but I am also changing during these years. I am not like the old me anymore. My thoughts, my feelings, and my personality had changed.
Things change, people change. I started feeling that everything is not permanent. Nothing is everlasting. Every occurrence in life is only temporary and even life itself is short and temporary. I can feel that the cycle of life is continuously shifting from a phase to another. The moment now is immediately becoming the past. And, our past is the only part of our memory that is ever growing. We should either grasp upon today, or let today slip away, swept away by the currents flowing in the river of time, traveling all the way to the seas of past. Cherish today and not regretting tomorrow. :)
