Ode to a Signature

A signature. My signature. Right below my name. Not the typical bank signature. It doesn't even say my name. It's an online signature - the one you add at the end of your emails. I think it was 6 or 7 years ago when I put that signature.

I hardly use that particular email, so naturally I completely forgot about that signature, until a few days ago. I was about to send a mail and I saw it. It really made me stop for a second or two. It was overwhelming.

You know how a picture sometimes captures a rare moment in our lives. Beautiful moments, of times that were wonderful, we were happy, having fun, surrounded by people we love. A pictures tell a story, at times a story bigger than what we originally experienced. All credit to small details. A moment or two in ridiculous outfits, doing the stupidest of things, caught by surprise in the spur of the moment. They didn't say the picture paints a thousand words for no reason.

It's just that I also believe in the power of the written word. It possesses a unique quality of its own - to hold bits and pieces of ourselves, our thoughts, our minds at a certain time and age.

Dance as if no one is watching you,
Love as if you've never been hurt before,

Sing as if no one can hear you,
Live as if heaven is on earth

Those words made up my signature. Those were words I literally lived by. That was me. My outlook on life. I believed in the good, in sunshine, and in happiness. I wore a smile at all times. I believed in myself, in following my dreams, in doing what I want, enjoying the moment, and not paying attention to people who despise you.

After initially being dumbfounded when I read my signature words, I went 'yaaaaaaaaaa'. Then I kind of smiled, and memories kept flooding in. There were glimpses of myself, in another world, living a different life. There were faces I had forgotten, battles I no longer fought, jokes that still made me laugh, issues I find irrelevant now and music I can't bring myself to talk about. Then came a sigh, and whole new meaning to the phrase life will never cease to amaze me.

That's who I was, a person who's passionate about life and living. It is who I am right now. That's who I'll become.

Worth mentioning, those three are not remotely related.