Pencil.

Most people write in order to create a lasting record of something; something they want to treasure for the rest of their days. They write in ink, because ink is permanent and unlikely to disappear anytime in the near future. In the olden days, people would carve into stone; an enduring legacy only dimmed through decades and centuries and millennia of being battered by the elements.

However, on occasion I like to write in pencil. Pencil fades with time, like the memories inside my head I transcribe to the page. Memories I perhaps no longer wish to carry around with me, memories that perhaps once brought joy but now cause pain or lament. Memories that become unimportant and meaningless as I journey to my end days. Memories that often cause more damage than good, the more I cling to them.

That’s all memories are, in the end. A collection of false hopes and dreams; hopes and dreams that die with the passage of time to be replaced with new ones. New hopes and dreams that bring a renewed optimism to proceedings, spurring me along on that journey to my end days, making it all mean something.

New hopes and dreams that are worth waking up for.