Photos, Letters, and Memories

Dear readers,

There’s a really, really old saying that I like: “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

It’s a portrayal that the emotions and unspeakable words can be embodied inside one single picture.

But, there’s a catch.

If you have not experienced the story behind these pictures yourself or heard of it, you wouldn’t get it.

Nothing is conveyed—it’s just a random picture.

Nothing is told—there is no context behind it.

Nothing is expressed—only a piece of illustration on top of your imagination.

But, what if I were to add some context to it?

I hadn’t realised then… that she would change my life forever.

So now even if you haven’t seen this anime (Your Lie in April), you’d know there’d be some relationships formed between the boy and the girl. Maybe it’s related to piano, maybe it’s sad and painful, maybe it’s happy and inspiring. A letter, and a framed picture on top of a piano, with a boy that just happened to be in the picture, what would this story be?

Yet, if you have watched it, then you’d probably feel a strong surge of melancholic, mixed emotions flooding into you.

What evoke this feeling, is your memories of this story.

One thing about blogging is that you get to ~~change~~ erase the words that you choose to employ to better fit the message that you’re tyring to deliver. The many, many words that are running scrambled inside your head, when you compose yourself and write them out, it becomes clearer, tidier, and more comprehensive. This is why letters still exist even though we can just copy our words from memo and paste it somewhere where an ‘enter’ can just do the job.

We, organize, and comparmentalize our thoughts in letters: word by word, paragraph by paragraph.

It’s something that normal human don’t do.

But, many story do—to maximize the impact brought upon by a character.

And, the reason is simple: so that you know what they are thinking, deep inside them.

Writing letters is like pouring your heart out to be displayed, sharing your memories, and desires. It’s depicted as a more personal way to convey a feeling, that you care about the contents of the letter and the people at the end of receiving it. Most importantly, what you imagine they would feel upon reading it sentence by sentence, after knowing that it’s travelled far away to reach there.

Would your feelings reach them?

Would it ever… be enough?

Photos, and letters have this duality on them: they don’t need to be poignant and sad, but they can be if you perceive them to be. Because they serve as a living proof that something’s actually happened, that the emotions you get from them are not fabricated, and that, somewhere inside your heart, there’s a special place for them.

That’s… the most important thing there is, isn’t it?