Idealizing The Past

My former high school classmates and townmates who I found on Facebook, and I have been talking about what we remembered about our town when we were growing up. We have also been trying to trace the whereabouts of people we haven’t seen for decades. Old pictures have popped up from here and there even though most from my age group have little or none to show because they were things we lost in the fire of 1974. The insurrection of that year was like a shotgun blast that scattered the pellets of our lives in different directions.

What we tend to remember were all the good experiences that happened to us, specially the ones who have not returned to visit Jolo since 1974 and haven’t seen the changes first hand, even though we hear the bad news from there once in awhile. We like to remember the sights and sounds of things that were pleasant but we tend to, intentionally or not, forget the bad things. We wish things would return to how it used to be before all the troubles started, but realistically we know it could never be. At least I hope that we can be realistic.

Idealizing the past is okay and trying to see Jolo’s situation with rose-colored glasses is okay too, but with the current conflicts and kidnappings it’s hard to imagine that we can ever go back to how it used to be.

Yet, it has been a joy discussing, remembering, and exchanging memories with and about people we grew up with. It makes me smile when they tell me about happy experiences, makes me sad when I learn that some of them have died, but most importantly it makes me proud that despite all the challenges that the 1974 incident presented, we were able to move on and make something of ourselves, one pellet at a time.