PROMPTuesday #63 – Don’t Look Back
Packing and moving is at the top of Deb’s list right now, about which she’s none too thrilled. I can’t say as I blame her. While there’s a certain cleansing aspect of moving (shedding the old, embracing the new), it’s really a big ol’ pain in the ass most of the time. I don’t know anyone who relishes the thought of packing up a whole household and uprooting one’s family. I feel for military families who end up doing this every couple of years.
Anyhow, in Debbie’s PROMPT this week, she gets all fuzzy and touchy-feely, us: “If you could live one year of your life over again in the identical way, which year would it be and why?”
My answer is this:
I’d live them all over again, however they unfold. I don’t think anything would be exactly the same nor do I think I’d want it to be. There’s no percentage in looking back and wishing for the “good old days” simply because nothing is ever as good as we remember it being. Our memories are faulty at best. There are always parts of the past we forget, either because we must (out of preservation of self) or because it works to our advantage to not remember (saving face — our personal walk of shame best not discussed). Plus, you have to consider that going backwards prevents us from going forward. Sounds so cliché, doesn’t it? But think about it. To live it all over again, exactly as you’ve done means that you’ve either learned nothing and are bound to repeat mistakes, and/or to deny who you are, how far you’ve come.
Despite all the mistakes I’ve made in life, I’d like to think given the opportunity to relive a part of my life that I’d make a few different choices. Nothing major, mind you. Just little things like not allowing a former best friend take care of my daughter (and neglect her in favor of drinking), not allowing certain people entrée to my life, my world (some introduced to me by that same former best friend). Otherwise, how could I really want to change much? Whatever big decisions I’ve made have brought my children into being, have allowed me the opportunities I’ve had to see and do things I’d not have had to chance to see and do otherwise.
That sounds like a lot of doublespeak, doesn’t it?
I guess what I’m really trying to say is that I don’t spend a lot of time looking back. I can’t change anything I’ve done in the past nor can I really change how I remember things happening. The past is what it is and it’s best left where it is (same principle that applies to ex-boyfriends, ex-lovers, ex-husbands, ex-friends). All you can do is look forward, taking with you what you’ve learned along the way.
It may not make sense to anyone else, but it makes all the sense in the world to me.
Great answer. I do manage to gloss over my past quite convincingly, even [especially] to myself. How could I pick one year, not remembering what *really* happened? LOL!
If I did, say, pick a year from my golden youth and spent most of the time riding my horse in the hot Texas sun… I’m afraid that something untoward would occur and smudge my wonderful memories.
Thanks, but no thanks. :nana:
Comment by Pam — 2009/07/08 @ 04:27
You’re right. That year re-lived would have to be for nothing more than to experience the same old memories again and learn nothing. Still, there are some feelings I’d love to have again in the same exact way as I felt them then.
See? Now whose not making sense?
Comment by San Diego Momma — 2009/07/09 @ 14:29
see, I could do that for a day. But a year? No. None of my years have been idyllic enough. (I’m such a party pooper, aren’t I?)
Comment by DaGoddess — 2009/07/09 @ 14:44