My motivation to pick up my figurative pen and paper has always been linked to my reading habits, which have been largely absent in my last year of university. After what felt like an eternity — six months to be exact, while I finished the last bits of my dreaded university life — I finally had the time to read again.

I’m embarrassed to admit that it wasn’t the first thing I picked up upon submitting my first assignment. I had surrendered to the age of technology saturation and turned to YouTube and Netflix and, upon completing every series I was interested in, finally my Kindle.

I found my Kindle with its battery exhausted and literally covered in dust due to the construction nearby my house. The cover was scratched, battered, and as yellow as a book in storage. I couldn’t have found a better literary representation of the relationship between my Kindle and I. Pardon the unforeseen sentiments.

I got the Kindle during my first internship stint four years ago, which seemed like only yesterday although the six months I was away from my e-books felt like forever. Time is a master of deception, isn’t it?

I held several positions since then. A full-time marketing position, going back to being a clueless intern, then facing endless clients as a freelancer. I travelled with my Kindle, conquering the countries I declared, as a young dreamer, I’d visit someday.

For four tumultuous yet significant years, I’ve had my Kindle. Looking back, it’s rather ironic that the Kindle lasted longer than my friendship with the people who persuaded me to not get it.
 Adult friendships, as I learnt, do not end with a monumental melodramatic fight — it gradually fizzles out, like a coke that has been left on the table for far too long. Sometimes you let it be. Sometimes it’s long been depleted before even the most discerning person notices it.

It doesn’t hurt any less just because I’m an adult now — or maybe, just maybe, I’m not an adult yet because I haven’t grown numb to it. That’s fine. Or at least I keep telling myself that it is. Life is short. Celebrate the wins and don’t beat yourself too much over the losses. One day, it’ll come a full circle; maybe we’ll meet again and chatter endlessly about the things that don’t matter as if time never passed.

Perhaps it’s time to let go of these memories, we can’t hold on to them forever. Perhaps it’s fine to not have control. Perhaps we can’t keep fixing everything.

The one thing that’s for sure? It’s time to get a new Kindle cover.