The Evidence...

Is it just me, or does everyone have a digital archive?

Whenever life gets a little too much, I have a rather silly routine. I open Instagram. Not to scroll (ofc, I do that as well).

Not to see what everyone else is up to. I go straight to my highlights.

I don't even know when I started doing this.

I just know that whenever I'm having one of those days where everything feels heavier than it should, I end up there. Watching old stories. Random videos from coffee sessions. Football matches where I barely touched the ball(iykyk). Late night drives that didn't mean much at the time. Birthdays. Stupid reels. Friends laughing over absolutely nothing.

Nothing extraordinary.

Just life.

The more I think about it, the more I realise this is probably why I am the way I am.

People usually think we're shaped by the big moments. The heartbreaks. The achievements. The conversations that divide life into a "before" and an "after."

I don't think that's true anymore.

I think we're made up of a thousand tiny moments that nobody thought were important enough to remember.

Maybe that's why I archive everything.

I'm scared that if I forget those moments, I'll slowly forget the version of myself that lived through them.

Whenever I go back to those highlights, something changes.

It's not something major.

It doesn't magically fix my mood.

It doesn't make the sadness disappear.

It's much smaller than that.

It just reminds me that I've been happy before.

And for some reason...

that matters.

I don't think I post stories because I want other people to remember them. It was something I was very confused about. I've finally accepted that. I post them because I'm scared that I won't.

My memory has terrible priorities.

It forgets passwords.

It forgets formulas the day before an exam.

It forgets birthdays until google calender reminds me.

It forgets why I walked into a room.

But then someone asks me,

"How do you remember such small things about me?"

And I genuinely don't know how to answer.

How do I explain that my brain threw away most of my engineering syllabus...

...but somehow remembers the name of a song someone casually mentioned liking once at two in the morning?

Or the tea they always order.

Or the exact sentence they said months ago when they thought nobody was paying attention.

I don't remember people on purpose.

My brain just quietly decides they're important before it ever asks me.

Maybe memory has never cared about usefulness.

Maybe it has always cared about affection.

Which is funny, because when it comes to my own life, it suddenly becomes unreliable.

I can remember every embarrassing thing I've ever said.

The people who hurt me.

The exams I've failed.

The nights I couldn't sleep.

But ask me about the good days.

The ordinary ones.

The Tuesday afternoon where nothing really happened except my friends and I laughed until our stomachs hurt.

The tea after class.

The walk back to my friend's hostel.

The conversation that went nowhere but somehow became one of my favourite memories.

Those disappear first.

And I hate that.

Because those are the moments that actually make a life.

Not the milestones.

The ordinary Tuesdays.

Maybe that's why I keep collecting them.

I don't think I need an audience.

I think I just need a witness.

Sometimes...

that someone is just future me.

There have been days where I've opened my highlights because I genuinely couldn't remember what happiness felt like.

Not philosophically.

Literally.

I wanted to remember what my face looked like when I laughed without forcing it.

I wanted proof that I still knew how.

And every single time...

I find it.

It's always something painfully ordinary.

A sunset nobody planned to watch.

A dumb joke that somehow became the funniest thing in the world.

That's the part that gets me.

The best moments of my life never knew they were becoming memories.

They were just ordinary days.

I think that's why they matter so much now.

Because when my brain starts lying to me, telling me I've forgotten how to be happy, those stories quietly disagree.

They don't argue.

They just exist.

As proof.

Maybe that's all my highlights have ever been.

A backup.

A happier version of me leaving little notes for the version that's going to need them someday.

Almost like he's saying,

"Hey..."

"I know things feel impossible right now."

"But look."

"You laughed here."

"You loved these people."

"You belonged."

"Don't let one bad week convince you that life has always felt this heavy."

I don't go back because I miss the past.

I don't.

I miss some people.

I miss certain versions of myself.

But that's not why I open Instagram.

I open it because it reminds me of something I keep forgetting.

Happiness isn't something I'm still waiting to find.

It's something I've already lived.

And if it happened once...

Maybe it can happen again.