Freewriting

Nostalgia
I step back and collect my deepest deepest memories
I facebook kids I haven't seen since I was 4 feet tall
and dig through old photos to decorate my wall.
It's so hard to believe you live your whole life in one shell.
I've put on 1000 different outfits
Had 100 different personalities
10 different images
All endured by 1 body.
It's almost as if I can't believe I was the person I was before 2009.
There's parts of my past self I still wish I had or could be
And there's past selves I'd like to backhand.
I face each regret, too many to count.
I try to put myself in the mindset of the time wondering.
Faded friendships are hollow reminders of wrong turns
And old flames are looming burnt out candles.
I'll hit an occasion thinking of people I haven't seen in months, years.
Then sleep.
Suddenly I come face to face with a shadow whose existence I'm not reminded of daily.
They'll tell me we used to mean so much to each other,
Tell me why can't we at least keep in touch.
We used to see each other everyday now it's hard to talk more than once a year?
I might see myself in the present or future with the chain between us unbroken.
They could fill a void that is present or bump out someone in their place.
Wake up suddenly to an alarm
Ponder for no more than 5 seconds before I forget about them and move onto daily life.
These memories are not just of people.
I genuinely miss high school so badly it hurts.
Why is it we spend 4 years with people following the same purpose only for each of us to have a different one afterwards?
It's been nearly a year since I was supposed to move on from that life and I still haven't.
I'm meant to change myself again in preparation for the daunting adulthood ahead.
I dwell on each wrong decision.
Each day I wake up to a shiny purple football helmet by my bedside.
It is still scratched all over and even contains traces of paint from opposing helmets.
I imagine myself running with 11 guys chasing me
But that was only a halfway reality.
If I were to write a list of every bad decision I've made it wouldn't end.
Today I named seven people to my girlfriend.
Seven people I thought would be attending my 30th birthday.
I'd be lucky if all seven showed up.
I have a lot of good friends
But there's the crippling fear of the reality they won't make it to my future.
I can never lose my attachment to anything.
From plain sight in the middle of my room I can see everything
The pictures of every high school formal I've ever been to, all the books I read in my childhood, every name tag I received from a key club event, stuffed animals I've had since age 5 and a pile of video games.
Is life like video games?
Not in that way
But that we just move from one to the next, living completely differently as we shift
I've been so many people but at the same time only one person
So who am I now?
My name is Marvin Ho. I am an 18 year-old community college student. I have no major or idea of my career path. I have a beautiful girlfriend and today is my 5 month anniversary with her. I am a mediocre popper and b-boy but dream of being on America's Best Dance Crew and So You Think You Can Dance. I collect toys and shoes but don't quite have the financial backing for the latter. I own a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution X and drive it speed limit out of fear of cops. I have two level 80 World of Warcraft characters and I almost have a third, using the game as my only connection to many of my friends who've moved away.
Today, I sat on my living room couch for 10 hours to play Persona 4, a video game in which I live another life.
Am I who I should be?