Reminiscing

I was declutterring my things and I found a stash of old CD's, out of curiosity, I looked at what the CD's have in them and I found 84 old pictures. They were from an old phone that I already threw out years ago. And I thought that I had lost those pictures forever.Some good things do come out when you clear out the trash. Among these old pictures were photos of the year I spent as a volunteer teacher in one of the remote mountains of our province. Looking at them,I realized how different I look two years ago and now have a greater understanding of the ravages my job wreaks on my life. Starting simply with how I look. I looked younger two years ago, no bemoaning the fact that I am older. But, there was simply a joy in my eyes, indicating that I was happy with what I was doing even though teaching with barely a modicum of materials on top of a mountain could hardly be considered easy. There was simply a spark in my eyes that probably resulted from all the endorphins I was manufacturing because of the daily exercise.
Coming across the pictures brought back a lot of memories,from that rainy day in June, when, still fresh from the city we attempted to climb the tallest among the mountains on that range and we barely made it to the top. In fact, we never actually wanted to go there. All we were after was to climb to a part of the mountain where we can see the town and the neighboring villages. We climbed to the peak on impulse, goaded by the wonderful legend of the mountain that our students were telling us. Three hours later, we all agreed that it was probably a bad idea. But then again, bragging rights were with us since we were able to climb up to the top, us city dwellers who,like me have a fear of heights. I was hanging on to the shrubberry for dear life, never letting them know that my slipping was not due to the we soil, but because my palms and soles were sweating so hard that it seemed like I was on a perpetual sliding motion. Also knowing that one wrong step could mean certain fall to my demise. Whew! I'm getting sweaty palms now, just writing about the harrowing experience.
It's a far cry from my present mouse-pushing job, but I realized that my experience there actually strengthened me to face whatever this present job may bring me. So much for the memories, we can never really live in the past, we just have to go back,and draw experience from it once in a while.