Recently, I found an old SD card lying around that I haven’t seen in a long time. It was actually my first SD card I’ve ever owned which came with my Panasonic MP3 player. It held a whopping 64 Megabytes of data. In fact, I still own the MP3 player that it came with. I came across it not too long ago while looking through some older storage bins I have. I picked it up and held it in my hand, captivated by how light and thin it felt compared to todays standards. I got it when MP3 players were a budding new technology. During the primitive year of 2001. It took one AAA battery and could last on that for a very, very long time. Two memories I have etched into my brain with it are when I first placed the Windows XP Tour song on there and listened to it for hours at a time. The second memory is when our family took a trip to NYC. I was 16 at the time. After a great day in NYC, I remember getting back on the bus to head home and listening to the Ragnarok Online OST songs I was able to fit on there. I remember listening to these two songs specifically:
I remember it vividly. Sitting on the bus and getting lost in the music, eager to hop back online with my friend Okiesmokie and go on some adventures in the game together. It made me feel safe from a world where I never felt like I belonged. It was such a wonderful time.
Anyway, after seeing the MP3 player buried in a mess of the past, I picked it up and stood there for a moment. Spinning it around slowly, allowing the light to illuminate all of the small details. I quietly inspected all of the indications that two decades of time passed by. The once blue paint was now faded into a lighter color. The battery compartment, filled with flakes of peeling protective resin they applied to the plastic. The squeaky sound the rocker switch made when pressing it side to side. It made me feel immense sadness at just how fast time can move when we aren’t paying attention to it. The gradual passing of time, leaving its inescapable mark.
It’s something I never thought about when I was younger. That naivety we all have where getting old is something that couldn’t happen to us. Then one day – if you’re like me – you’re 35 and you have a profound moment while holding an old MP3 player from days gone. However, this was only the beginning. I then found the SD Card I referred to earlier. The one that came included with the player. I found this card, and decided to check out what was on it. What I found wasn’t music, but rather a few momentos. Videos hanging out with my old pal Fish and Mike G. Photos of us at 20 years old. Full of youth and wonder. All of these things had a major impact on me throughout the rest of the day. Hell, it even bled over into the next few. It was something I never really felt before. We were the MP3 players in this instance. Looking at us now, you could see the affects of time on ourselves. My dark hair, shiny and lustrous hair has now turned mostly grey. My youthful vibrant skin is now old. My then skinny body has more than few excess pounds now.
This all sounds like a pile of ‘No shit’ with a side of ‘Sherlock’ doesn’t it? Anyone reading this – at the very least – should react that way. Did I think I wasn’t going to age? Is the concept of aging so alien to me? Of course not, that would be silly. This is simply me applying emotions from my MP3 player moment, onto myself. Of course I knew I still had the player, and that it had aged 20+ years since I first got it. However, I never realized how much time had taken its toll on it until paying attention to these subtle changes.
Check out the following collage of my Photo ID pictures over time:
It’s wild to see the affects of time having passed. The color of my hair slowly fading away. My stoic exterior softening. My style of clothing changing every 4 years. Change is incontrovertibly intertwined with time. It softens hard edges. Fades colors. Heals wounds.
The realization and finality of the fact I can never go back truly cut deep with me. I’ll never be as youthful look as I was in those pictures. As healthy, energetic and enthused as I once was. I feel like a completely different person, and it’s scary. In many ways, I’ve grown in much better ways. I am grateful for who I am today. Yet, I still yearn for connection with the self I no longer identify with – to carry on the best qualities of that version of me.
When I was younger, I used to think youth was going to last forever. That my best and brightest days would be ahead of me. I guess you can always hold onto that perspective if you try, however I believe the direction you look towards is simply another causality of father time. No longer do you look ahead, but rather look to days past.
As one of the great quotes stated it on the finale of The Office:
“I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.”
Andy Bernard