I was out shopping yesterday and a little girl standing behind me said to her mother “ Mom, can I hold your shopping bags?” I felt goosebumps ride over my arm. I quickly paid for my things and walked out of the store. didn’t even want to turn back to know the face of the voice. I had just remembered how I used to do the same. Growing up on movies and television shows that showed shopping as a celebration and how confident and powerful the lead would look with 20 shopping bags in her hands. I always wanted that! Once my mother wouldn’t let me hold a bag so I forced the bag off of her hands only to realize that it was not my mother. I was snatching the bag of a stranger. I must have been 7 at that time and did not feel embarrassed. Just wanted to feel like the actresses. Sadly, I don’t remember the first time I got to hold my own shopping bags. The things I once felt passionate about, couldn’t wait for them to happen, happened. But I can’t recall what I felt while doing it. Growing up is such a gradual process, takes one day at a time and we go from being kids to responsible adults but there are some moments that are never celebrated. Ones that should have.
I always thought going to a café by myself would be the day I would have transitioned into a grown-up. Now that I go to cafés so often, I feel anything but excited! Consigned to oblivion about my firsts. But why? I do not tick it off my list because there isn’t one! Had I changed, or my priorities? And when did that happen? Am I living an inattentive life?
The little girl from the store made me nostalgic and I had a visceral reaction, reflecting back on my life. When we see something new, we want to do it and are excited by the thought of it. “It will be fun” is what we say. And when we do get a chance to experience it, how much of it are we actually taking in? Do we feel joyous? Grateful? Proud? Or does our narrative quickly go to the past tense, saying “that was fun!”. The journey from ‘will’ to ‘was’ is the one we forget to rejoice.
When I was studying for my exams, I couldn’t wait for them to end and to start reading the new book by my favorite author. And when I was reading the book, I kept on thinking about the new show premiering on Netflix and how I should just finish the book quickly to start watching it. While watching the show I was thinking how I could have made notes while reading the book, it would have helped me while writing a review.
The mind goes from one thing to another. From the future to the past. From looking forward to nostalgia. But real life happens in between that. It’s the present we fail to acknowledge. I wish I had celebrated the first time I went shopping by myself, the first time I went to a café alone, reading the book I was waiting for, and watching the highly anticipated movie for the first time. I hope that little girl remembers the first time she holds her own shopping bags and celebrates them. I wish I had lived more in those moments and I shall do better in the future. Yet again, using words like ‘had’ and ‘shall’, I have a smile on my face, loving typing it all. Living in the now.