I've been home for two weeks. Since my return I have made a point to reach out to the people I need in my life, and to avoid everything I want to...well, avoid.

So on this particular night, I stayed in, and spent the evening digging in the depths of my closet, which in fact turned out to be a fruitful endeavor. My fingers happened to graze an old tape player buried beneath the layers of scarves that never get worn, shoved in the back of my closet. Initially I opened it and tossed aside the unlabeled tape that lie within, in order to play a recording of my family members in conversation that I found months ago, and have yet had the ability to play. They were nice moments, causal and nonchalant, from when I was in middle school. Simple banter between my sister mother and I, but to be honest, not much had changed. Hours later I decided to give a listen to the tape I had displaced from the player, realizing something equally as charming might be written on its shiny magnetic strip.
What I found was truly a treat. Although recorded much more recently than the other, this one being only 3 years old, the sounds coming through the tinny speakers were of three best friends, whose voices and giggles have not been in the same room in a very long time. At least in this capacity.
For an hour I listened to the tape player, with its batteries held in with a piece of packing tape, and enjoyed Carla, Carlee, a guitar, and I, humming and singing and talking in a way so familiar, although now so foreign. Now these were not great moments in the sense that they were rare. These were the same conversations we had had hundreds of times, but this was the only one that I had the ability to relive.
And it got me thinking. I, being the nostalgic so-and-so that I am, am going to purchase a little digital voice recorder and carry it around with me. Every few nights, or every few weeks I will bring it out when I am around my friends, or in a seemingly everyday situation, and just record for a few minutes here and there. I am one who realizes that the things we experience everyday should not be taken for granted. Instead of letting them fall into the past, I am going to preserve them, in whatever tiny way I can.