A Mosaic of All the People We've Ever Known

We are all our own unique individuals. Yes, that notion is true- there's no argument there. There are 8 billion people worldwide, but you wouldn't find an exact replica of yourself anywhere else than within you. It might be the way you hold your pen or the way you walk across the street that distinguishes you from someone else who may share your very same name. But what if I tell you, that you're not entirely yourself either?

Quite confusing, I'm aware, but allow me to elaborate. 

You see, I still sing the 'inky pinky ponky' song the way my kindergarten friend had taught me to. I don't talk to her anymore. I haven't seen her in years. I do not know where she is or what she is doing at this point in her life. But whenever I'm faced with a choice that's beyond all rationality, I still sing this song that she taught me, to weigh out my options and arrive at a conclusion that's satisfactory to my heart.

You see, I still draw the sun in half at the top left corner of a page whenever I have to because that's the way my class teacher in second grade had drawn it on the board one random day in class. It's not that I disliked the full image of the sun but how she drew it in half had struck me as peculiar and I had adopted that from her, unaware at the moment that it'll stick with me throughout the rest of my life.

You see, I still make coffee the way my dad had taught me to, not because it's different or easier but because I remember the happiness I felt when he said he loved the cup of coffee I had made for him in the way he had taught me to. It might not have been exactly the same as what he used to make but still, he appreciated my effort and that made me stick to the exact same steps he had showed me that boring day in our kitchen back home.

You see, I still make pinky promises on everything that I think is of significance because a friend I had in seventh grade had introduced me to that concept and it became something that I put a lot of trust in. It doesn't matter that he broke that first pinky promise he made to me. It doesn't matter that my trust in him faltered along the way. I still use this childish yet endearing type of promise to give my word on the most complex and mature topics to my closest friends.

You see, I still prefer Mountain Dew as my go-to soft drink every single time because a person who used to be my best friend loved it so very much. We may have failed to navigate the courses of our lives the way we had intended to, and we may have fallen out of touch with each other, and we may never speak to each other ever again in this lifetime, but the memory of him buying me that drink and of me buying him the same will forever reside with me. And every time I go up to a shopkeeper and buy a bottle of Mountain Dew, open it and take a sip, I'll hold him in my memory for a split second, cherishing the good times when we used to laugh at the stupidest things in existence, passing the bottle back and forth between ourselves.

And this is exactly why I said we're not entirely ourselves. Unknowingly or knowingly, we cradle a piece of the people who have walked in and out of our lives or even the people who have stayed in them, just because we're humans.

We're humans. And that's just what we do.

Even without being aware of it, we recreate and adopt things from the people around us which might seem too mundane and irrelevant at face value. Before we know it, their habits become our habits, and their methods become our methods. And they slowly and eventually become a part of ourselves, making us not one lonesome individual but rather a mosaic of all the people we've ever known.