Purple Past............,.

Man, I think that if I could be doing anything, I would be sipping a Grande White Mocha and reading a book. Throughout one's life, the definition of happiness changes. I mean, you know... like, when I was 7, I probobly would not define happiness as driving very fast all alone in the dark with the music cranked up very loud, or sitting in Ms. B's room, just sitting there, alone with my coffee and book, drinking in both the coffee and the words. Yep. When I was 7, I most likely would define happiness as, I dunno, going somewhere with my family and eating pizza. I don't know, actually... And I will actually never know, because that person is completely utterly inattainable. She has simply ceased to exist. So, I was reading a packet on time, actually, and it was quite interesting. Is the past real? More intriguing, is the future real? Some theorize that only the present is real, and from that stems all sorts of implications. As for me, well, I really don't know... it seems to me that the past is a very very interesting thing. Sometimes we wish it never to have happened; sometimes we wish to travel back to it, to either veiw past events or to change them, which becomes even more confusing.. it gets all mottled, cause and effect. Hm, well, anyway.. just a few ramblings on that. But, in a weird way related to time/past, I found a very powerful and important.. object today in Ms. B's room. I was actually absentmindedly cleaning/tidying up, as I really had nothing better to do. She had to go to a meeting (which she rather loathed going to, because she still feels like crap) and she said I could do basically whatever. And so, I put the desks back into rows, thumbed through a few things on her desk, skimmed through some neat photography books she has, and then proceeded to aimlessly meander around the room, finally ending up near the back bookshelfs. I figured I'd do some sort of spring cleaning, at least a bit, but I got distracted by a dusty, purple binder. I grabbed it instinctively, expecting it to be some crappy old student's binder thoughtlessly thrown on the bottom shelf under the dictionaries. Turns out I was quite wrong... I won't reveal all that was contained in this bursting binder, but it turns out a lot of stuff was in it, a lot of writing, a lot of handouts... and all these papers jolted my heart, made me start to sweat. At one point, when reading a letter from a sophomore (a sophomore in 2001, that is, in VA) my hands even began to shake. I was quite jumpy... and I felt pretty guilty about looking at it.. I knew I really shouldn't. I should have simply thrown the old thing back to the shaddowy shelf where it had apparantly lain undisturbed since she came in August, I presume. Anyway, the point is, I did in fact look at it, no, I did more than that, I delved into it. It was kind of like a carwreck, it's so shocking you want to look away but at the same time your eyes are glued and you're compelled to keep going. Well, I never actually understood the carwreck analogy myself, but I decided to use it. It was, in fact, much more compelling than a carwreck. The contents of the purple binder did not actually frighten me; I knew all of this previously. But they just kind of woke me up to reality. The reminded me that, well, this enigmatic woman is a person, a very real person, with a history and a past. A very, very interesting and woven and intricate past. So. Past. I, especially while looking at that letter (probobly the worst thing that I did, was reading that..), grew jelous of this past student. I don't even remember her name. I wouldn't have ever known about this obscure distant person. That person isn't real to me, I've never known her or met her... but Ms. B. has. I.. I dunno, really. I have more to say, but I cannot really phrase it. Besides, the bell just rang and now I am going to go watch a movie about the music scene in Istanbul. Woot.