Today I’m thinking about the past. At this point in my life I have a lot of past, and most of it doesn’t give me all that much pleasure to think about. I know that it made me, but also that returning to it is impossible and the attempt is often harmful.
While I was looking for something I came across a negative comment about myself. It doesn’t matter what it was. The point is more that those tend to be the things that stick with me. (I know I’m not alone in this.) For example if 10 people say “that was good” and one person says “that was bad,” I’ll focus on the latter. The same is true for me most of the time when I think of the past. I have some rosy memories, but more bad ones.
I was thinking of that Faulkner quote: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” And then contrasting that with the Buddhist idea that the past is finished, the future is not real, and only the present can really be experienced and dealt with.
I’m a little bit lucky in that depression impacts the memory retention centers of the brain, so I’ve actually forgotten the majority of my life. A weird kind of luck, but still. I don’t have regular communication with most of my family, or with almost anyone from previous eras of my life. Perhaps this is normal for most folks who’ve moved a lot, like I have. It tends to mean that the majority of people I talk to regularly know very little about me. This makes my current self … maybe a bit shallow or two-dimensional? But also it means they’re not usually a dragging a ton of old baggage into our interactions.
It’s an interesting tightrope to walk – a thin line strung between the things that created me and the person I might yet become. The rope itself is all that exists, and I just balance.
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