I try not to think a lot.
But sometimes, when I lie in my bed or take a long bath, it happens. I catch myself reliving a trip I went on as a kid, one of my first memories. Me and my family at the beach, a grape popsicle, and the moment I fell and scraped my knee. Even though the bruise had hurt, I keep this as a happy day, for I was in the arms of those who love me.
The hot shower water against my skin reminds me of the tears I felt on my cheek the last time I said goodbye to my grandpa, and of all the silly jokes he used to tell me. I can even see his smile while he ate brigadeiro at my 15th birthday party.
Many people tell me that he and I are the same, which warms me more than this bath.
The shampoo is the same one I have always used. The smell transports me back to the countless weeks I shared with a great friend during the pandemic. Days when we pretended to be musicians, writers, photographers, and models—even during a difficult time, everything seemed possible by her side. All of our dreams were just a step away, and we didn’t even know it.
I grew up and experienced many moments.
Among them, an abandonment. I no longer had the one who untangled my hair. Now I do it alone, and it’s good being able to feel how soft the strands are. Maybe it’s the small details that really impact our day-to-day life; that’s why I occasionally catch myself saying catchphrases she used to say or listening to songs we used to dance to in the living room. I don’t know if I ever cross her mind or if she erased me just like all the photos we had together, but that doesn’t matter.
Cycles come to an end just like songs, classes, days, and baths.
The steam blurred my ideas, just like all the bathroom mirrors, and I can’t even distinguish my own reflection.
I don’t think I’m the one who can decide what belongs in the past and what I should carry within my heart, not when nostalgia drapes me even in the present. Am I allowed to miss a college party while I’m still drunk and dancing? My best friends and I shouting the lyrics to some random pop song on a Friday night, then studying on an ordinary Tuesday. A group with whom I can truly talk and even rediscover who I am. The ones I’ll remember when my grandkids ask me about my youth.
But today is Sunday, so I decide to make some coffee and eat banana pancakes that taste just like waking up in another country, speaking a strange mixture of French, Portuguese, Italian, or Spanish. It didn’t matter—all Romance languages felt like the same one. Occasionally, we spoke English too. But in the end, no language is able to describe the beauty of the Alps as seen from my window, or of the people who admired them alongside me. Every moment, trip, and conversation I savored, sip by sip.
An experience that shaped me forever.
Now, I look out the window and see many buildings, and on the table lies my favorite book. When I read it for the first time, I devoured it. Today, it’s been days since I last picked it up. I think I’m learning to savor it, little by little, so that its taste doesn’t escape me. This time, I intend to preserve every detail, as though it had been printed in my mind rather than on paper.
I also want to print a smile, every detail of it, maybe even hang it on my wall.
It could be your eyes, your hands, or even the curve of your waist, as long as I could keep them close to me forever. But instead, I open the book to the page marked with a flower I received a few months ago. It’s very different from what it once was. I learned that, over time, flowers bend toward the sun and grow. Mine doesn’t. It bends toward the sea and becomes an important mark that changes every time I look at it. Maybe that’s its charm, or perhaps it’s the beauty of memories, always unique.
I try not to think a lot, but in the end, it’s all I am: memories. But they’re also everything I will never be again.