A smile for the memories..

It is amazing; the way we manage to summon up a certain memory out of a hundred others welled up deep inside the recesses of our minds!!

The other day, as I was listening to Mariah Carey's "One sweet Day", I found myself smiling uncontrollably and feeling a warm rush of content sweeping through my whole body, leaving me swamped in a strange sense of nostalgia to those old days of childhood!

That song triggered a specific incident and actually took me back to the age of 10 or 11, to that time when I heard this song and got acquainted with the great Mariah Carey for the very first time! To tell you the truth, back then English songs were not really that favoured by me and I almost knew none of the so-called cool singers of that particular generation! Frankly, it didn't really bother me that I was oblivious to all that hubbub!
However, that day I was visiting at my aunt's house and having fun with my cousin Khulood as usual! I am only one year older than her and so we do get along very well. So, that day I heard Mariah's track "One sweet day" and I got hooked instantly!

Let me tell you this, I have this habit of getting attached to things by using my sense of hearing! Believe me, I know from the first moment I listen to any song or music whether it appeals to me or not! And Mariah appealed to me alright! She still does, and still is my favourite female singer ever! Though for me that album remains the best I have heard for her, I do spontaneously buy every single album she releases and I don't question whether it'd be as good as expected or not! Of course, you can guess that I bought that album myself right the next day!

Now, at the age of 26, this very song never ever fails to bring back the same sense of excitement and wonder I had back then! Isn't that exhilarating?! I mean 15 years of my life have passed ever so quickly, transforming everything on its way including me, and yet deep down I know for sure that the child I used to be at that distant moment in time still resides somewhere inside of me; making life more bearable, adding beauty to my days and reminding me that at moments of distress I can always close my eyes, mentally turn back the hands of time to that same day and relive the joy and peace one gets out of being a child; blessed with that total blindness to all the traumas & hardships of life, which of course we cannot, now, but strive to tolerate and deal with even if it hits us right between the eyes!!

God, how many times I have heard people around me mumble to themselves 'If I could only go back in time and be a child once again, if only for a split second'! Cannot say I haven't silently wished for that to happen at certain points in my life, and I know that it is perfectly normal to do so. Yet, we all realize that this does not ever happen in reality, and so there is always the memories left for us to cherish and preserve as priceless gifts bestowed upon us by god to draw on our lips a beautiful smile that time can never erase!

Today, I can tell you that I am happy to have fully lived those moments, and to have smiled and laughed a lot back then. Though grown up and mature I happen to be at this stage of my life, it makes me extremely alive and exuberant to have this somewhat "Silly" yet beautiful smile of remembrance dominating my face and adding a spectacular glow like no other!