Siyah Beyaz

Some memories lose their colors with time.

I think that is what Siyah Beyaz makes me feel. Not that the past disappears, but that it slowly becomes quieter. The colors fade, the details become uncertain, and what remains is almost like an old photograph. You still know who was there. You still remember what happened. But everything belongs to another time.

There are people I remember like that.

Some were friends. Some were people I loved. Some were simply part of a period of my life that no longer exists. I do not always miss them in the usual sense. I do not necessarily want to see them again. Still, when I think about certain years, they are standing somewhere inside the picture.

And sometimes I miss the picture more than the people.

Life has a strange habit of separating us without asking permission. A friendship that once seemed permanent becomes a message sent once a year. Then even that disappears. Someone moves to another city. Someone changes. Someone gets tired. Sometimes nobody does anything wrong. The time is simply wrong.

I find those endings harder to understand.

It is easier when there is a clear reason. Anger gives you something to hold. Betrayal gives you someone to blame. But when people slowly disappear from each other’s lives, there is no single moment you can point to and say, “That was the end.”

You only notice it later.

One day you realize you have not heard a person’s voice for years.

The nights make these thoughts stronger. During the day, life is full of useful noise. Work, traffic, conversations, screens, responsibilities. There is always something asking for attention. At night, the empty spaces return.

That is when old faces sometimes appear.

I remember friends I thought I would know forever. I remember conversations that once felt extremely important. I remember people whose problems I knew better than my own. Now I have no idea what they had for dinner tonight, where they will wake up tomorrow, or what they are worried about.

There is something almost unbelievable about that.

Two people can once share everything and later know nothing about each other.

Maybe that is why loneliness is not always about being alone. You can have people around you and still feel the absence of someone who belongs to another part of your life. The empty place does not need to be large. Sometimes it is just enough to change the shape of an evening.

The song also makes me think about the walls we build inside ourselves. After enough goodbyes, you learn to protect certain parts of your life. You become more careful. You explain less. You expect less.

At first, this feels like strength.

Later, you wonder whether you have protected yourself too well.

I have probably done that more than once. There are things I should have said while there was still time. There are friendships I assumed would survive without effort. There are people I thought I could call whenever I wanted, until enough years passed and calling became strange.

Wrong people hurt.

Wrong times sometimes hurt more.

Still, I do not think every loss needs to be repaired. Some things belong exactly where they are: in memory.

I only wish memory were more reliable.

I wish I could remember every voice, every face, every ordinary evening that seemed unimportant while it was happening. Instead, time chooses for me. It keeps one small detail and throws away a whole year.

Perhaps that is why old memories sometimes feel black and white.

The colors are gone.

But the people are still there.