The cover photo is my one year-old self kissing my Lola (grandmother), with the help of my mother.

One of the benefits of being unemployed was the extra time I had to go through some boxes in my apartment. There were boxes of photo albums, VHS tapes, and 3½” floppy disks (remember those?) collected over the years. Those photo albums, VHS tapes, and floppy disks did not see daylight in more than 10 years! Now that VHS tapes and floppy disks are considered obsolete technologies today, I was wary of disposing them in the trash bin even though I had no practical use for those types of media. Who knows? People who still own VCRs and floppy drives can go dumpster diving and then take a look at those tapes and disks I would have thrown out. You can never be sure!

My project was to save some of those photos, tapes, and disks into today’s digital format before properly disposing them. The problem in getting started was finding and purchasing the hardware and software necessary to save the information stored. As I sifted through each photo, VHS tape, and floppy disk, good and bad memories from the past came to my mind. Photos of me and my childhood friends. Videos of my grandmother and uncle’s funerals, along with my parents’ wedding. Book reports and speeches from elementary school.

One particular memento that stuck with me in particular was a videotape of my Christening from almost 30 years ago. In watching the tape, I noticed that many of the people in my life had met and crossed paths with each other at one point in their lives. Over the years, people drifted apart from each other. People moved to different places, started their own families, and/or many of them passed away. There was a genuine feeling of happiness people shared being around each other eating homecooked food, gossiping, drinking, and dancing in the garage after having a few beers. Towards the end of the videotape, my elder cousins, whom I considered older sisters of mine growing up, opened my gifts for me, much to the annoyance of my aunts. I will admit, Noy Sauce is a sentimental dude, who at times, yearns for those happier times when going through a tough time.

Yet, as I replayed some of those key moments from that videotape over and over, I was reminded how precious life is. We do not know when will be the next time we see people again. Social media does not count. Those smiles on the faces of my relatives in that videotape showed me that they loved me very much, and truly cared for one another. While many of my relatives in that videotape had drifted apart or had passed away over the years, from watching the videotape, I recalled a lesson that has stuck with me over the years (shamelessly taken and loosely adapted from the anime Bleach):

“If we remember the good memories and lessons learned from loved ones who have gone before us, they will live on.”

When I see my late father joyfully hold me with pride on his lap, I saw someone who truly loved and cared for me, even though he was not someone who openly shared his feelings. When I see my aunts and late grandmothers get annoyed at my elder cousins for opening my presents, I smile thinking how fun my cousins must have had opening those gifts as toddlers, and how easy it is for younger children to be entertained by the simplest of things. When I see my inebriated uncles dancing in the garage to Chuck Berry’s “Rock & Roll Music”, I saw people who were not self-conscious about what others thought about them and simply made gatherings fun through spontaneity. (It is difficult finding people like them these days.)

There are days I question what the hell I am doing with my life, and whether the decisions I had made before and have to make today are the correct ones. But in watching that videotape, I find that overanalyzing these things will only annoy me and that at times, it is easier to trust, rather than to find clarity. The memories captured at that moment in time provided a lens to gain a different perspective on what matters most to me. At this time, what matters is being positively useful to those people who mean the most to me.

Rather than roll my eyes whenever my mother calls me “buang” (which means crazy/idiot) for having trouble finding things around the house, I joke with my mother by telling her, “Mom, it is not nice to call your son an idiot.” After being away from home for five years, I find the time shared with my mother a blessing in of itself, instead of time taken for granted.

Rather than lose patience at the process that goes into looking for a job that suits me well, I use the extra time to read books, gain fresh perspectives, and write more for the Noy Sauce blog. After belatedly realizing that I could have achieved more in school had I read more books and asked my teachers questions, I now find learning for the sake of learning an adventure, in which I can apply those lessons learned from reading into my own life.

Most importantly, rather than lament about not always making the most of the times I had spent with people, I smile thinking about the good times shared with them. Plenty of things had to go right for us to cross paths, and I am most thankful for those moments shared, for better or for worse.

Will I look at those files saved everyday moving forward? Probably not. But I am certain that I will take a look at them when I go through a rough time in the future. Like a slingshot, sometimes you need to take a step back and redirect your moral compass in order to propel yourself to move forward. Remembering the good memories and lessons learned from those whom I had crossed paths with, especially those who have gone before me, will only make the future that much sweeter. The future will be sweeter knowing that those people will continue to live on in my heart (and on my flash drive) wherever I go as long as I allow them to do so.

And isn’t finding that peace towards people whom you had crossed paths with, both good and bad, the best feeling you can have moving forward in life? I think so!