20th December, Sunday, 2:30pm
Lo and behold! This piece of metal and wires has suddenly stopped working. It has given up on life, and that too out of nowhere. Never have I ever exhausted it (okay, maybe while watching a YouTube video once), let its storage exceed 70%, or let it swim in water. Maybe it wants to irritate me or just simply die (too morbid). Maybe it has decided to stop functioning. Or decided to die.
20th December, Sunday, 3:30pm
After an hour of charging and taking out its battery, it is still enjoying heaven’s light. This phone has given up on me, it is time that I do the same.
You should know that my first phone, a birthday present, was given to me when I was 11 years old. I shouldn’t have asked for it, my mother was, as always, right. Then it was replaced by my father’s iPhone 5 whose smaller screen was not an upgrade. But the feeling of an iPhone is always good, expensive and may I also add, graceful. Then its keyboard’s letters had stopped working and it started hanging and opening random applications by itself, so we said goodbye to each other. And then, again, I got another phone from my father — which crashed an hour ago — so here we are.
20th December, Sunday, 8:45pm
After charging my previous phone because that is all I had for a means of communication, I was once again a proud owner of a disappointing iPhone. Then I did what anyone would do, check its gallery to reignite some memories.
“19 September, 2017”
Aha! Photos and selfies of people I am not friends with anymore. This is what memories do, not only do they force nostalgia but they also make you realise how naive and dumb you were. You see how you have grown, and you have to look at idiotic mistakes you made in the past thinking that they might be the only good decisions you would ever make. It’s not disappointing, really, it’s actually affirming and somehow comforting. Looking at these pictures, reliving your childhood — ‘’Oh! We also used to do this! Right!’’
25th December, Friday, 5:00pm
3 years went away in 3 minutes, but the experiences stay with us forever. They shape us and educate us. Each memory, each mistake has been a teaching moment. So, this time, I would like to celebrate Thanksgiving and say that I am thankful for the time that passes by. Thankful for the past and the mistakes I’ve made. Thankful for everything that is yet to come.
Thank you for an overall disturbing year yet a wonderful one.
– Ananya Pareek, Amity International School, Noida
I like this!