Saying Goodbye to a Notepad I Had for 13 Years

I was casually strolling through the Diwali celebrations of central London. It was 2011, and I was a master's student with little incentive to do beyond the bare minimum to secure my graduation. Rather than burying myself in books, I took short journeys around the city (and beyond), seeking to understand what makes the city one of the most diverse and attractive for people worldwide. There at the celebrations, I was casually handed a red notepad, the type where each page can be individually torn off. True to the spirit of the Indian diaspora, it was a promotion for financial services provider HDFC.

Little did I know that the red notepad, weighty and thick as a book in my hand then, would stay with me for the next 13 years, becoming my go-to for jotting down ideas specifically for this blog. Its hundreds of pages became thinner and thinner until today, I have come to its very last piece of paper. In those years, the master's student morphed into an executive at a Southeast Asian IT startup, then a program manager at an NGO in Africa, then a PhD student-cum-consultant in Japan, and now a digital nomad in Malta. Throughout the journey, the notepad captured my thoughts, which became blog entries.

Given the so many intercontinental moves, it is a wonder that the notepad stuck around even as so many other physical objects were jettisoned out of my life in a bid to make it easier and easier to keep moving. The minimalist lifestyle, a mentality so comprehensive as to affect what to buy, dress, and eat, should not need a notepad. After all, when pieces of paper abound in any destination, why take up valuable suitcase space with paper? Clearly, the notepad had sentimental value that cannot be verbalized in the cold, hard logic of keeping things simple and tidy.

What is the sentimental value of the notepad then? On its last page, I jotted down "the need to be cherishing of old things and old memories." Cryptic on a second reading, it nonetheless begs the question of what among the "old," a category that only becomes more and more stuffed with materials as time and experiences accumulate. But I do not think and reflect on the "old" until some sort of trigger – a task that the ever-shrinking size of the notepad remains well. Where the pages used to be, they must be ideas. What are they? That's for me to keep reminding myself of.

Some of these memories, unfortunately, may have disappeared with the pages that they were initially jotted on. Indeed, I may not have even remembered that Diwali celebration in London had it not been for the logo on the red notepad. And without those memories, I may have not even remembered that I have had so many memories with India, both in the country itself and through its massive diaspora. The sight of the red notepad brings out memories of stomach-churning chili chicken in Mumbai, the massive wedding in Jodhpur, and the so many Indians I met in Europe, Malaysia, Tanzania, and everywhere in between.

And if an object is a gateway to a series of memories, not having an object when I should have will also trigger memories. Just as the disappearing pages of the red notepad force me to recollect my thoughts on what the disappearance represents, one day, when I see an empty square in my suitcase where the red notepad should be, I may be reminded of today, and the days, weeks, and years past, when I had so much joy putting my thoughts down in words on the notepad. The excitement of a youthful writer thinking aloud: perhaps that is the sentiment that the red notepad represents that made it so essential in my journey.

Undoubtedly, I will miss the red notepad, just like I've missed all its pages and other worldly possessions that I tossed out from one destination and life stage to the next before the notepad. But just like their presence reminds me of their origin stories, their very absence will be a reminder too, not just of the memories that they hold, but also of life's inevitable changes that require some of the old to disappear before the new can fill their place. Disposing of the old, physically, then, continues to compel myself to look forward to and be excited by the unknown.

I look forward to the day that, just like someone casually handed me a notepad more than 13 years ago, another pivotal moment will soon emerge. Perhaps a brand-new notepad, of a different color and brand, will once again be in my possession in the most unexpected of ways and places. The new one will remind me of the old, but also be filled with new stories that I cannot yet imagine for the next decade or so. Those stories will not replace the ones that have already been written. But they will be just as important to who I am and will be.