Some Things Never Change

Yesterday, my grandma excitedly ushered me to a drawer in her spare bedroom and produced a letter addressed to her in my ten year old handwriting. I knew embarrassment was nigh.

I'd written the letter just before my family moved from Texas to Virginia. It was in two different colors of gel pen, written on the back of the notebook paper, and a few words were misspelled, but I could see my current self plain as day in the childish cursive handwriting.

It was written with weirdly adult phrasing. "They're shipping us out today," I began like the enlisted protagonist of a Tim O'Brian short story. I continued, "Sorry I didn't write earlyier (I'm ashamed, fifth grade me. Very ashamed.) as I was tied down with school work." I was tied down with school work. I was ten. Some things never change.

I said I had to pack up my stuff for our "diddy move." Eighteen year old me doesn't even know what a diddy move is, or why ten year old me put quotation marks around it. Dad explained it to me, and I did use the quotation marks correctly. That redeems some of the earlier spelling errors.

That letter is a perfect example of why I think writing is so important. I would never remember the mindset of myself eight years ago without it. The feelings that seem so monumental one moment are completely forgotten the next. I don't remember writing that letter at all, but while I was reading it, I was sucked back into that time of my life in a way I wouldn't do without that small reminder.

It also goes to show you that despite all the changes people undergo, there are parts of us that just stay the same. If I wrote those two paragraphs right now, I would probably phrase some of it the same. I'm proud of how mature I sounded, even if I don't remember it.

Grandma carefully tucked the letter back in her drawer, remembering the old me, hugging the current me. I'm glad both mes could bring her joy, and I'm glad that's something else that will never change.

All the world's a stage...

We always think of the past in terms of change.

"When I was young..."
"A few years ago we didn't..."
"It hasn't always been this way..."

But last night, as I sat watching a brilliant production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, it was easy to believe that some things truly don't change.

After all, Shakespeare wrote those words hundreds of years ago, and here is a group of high schoolers forfeiting their Friday night to hear them. Though the language is old (and beautiful, depending on your tastes), much of it still lives today. We unwittingly use words Shakespeare first penned, and his plots and reproduced over and over again.

And it's no mystery why these things don't die as easily as his characters seem to do. There's a reason the lines resound as easily with teenagers as the audiences of old. There isn't a high school student in the world who hasn't felt the sting of unrequited love, that can't sympathize with Helena as she clings to Demetrius and he pulls her around the stage or with Hermia's confusion as her love Lysander suddenly has changed his mind. Or even with Puck as he expresses remorse over his misdeeds before telling the audience not to be alarmed, it's all simply a dream.

These human emotions are timeless and unchanging. Even though we'd like to turn a nostalgic eye on the past, what matters always seems to stay the same.