Have you ever wished…
that you could go back in time and ask yourself what you were thinking, or how you felt about this event or that trauma? Or even remember who you were, exactly, because sometimes you just don’t feel like yourself.
One thing that I absolutely love is singing in the shower.
Recently, my Mom shared with me that I was always singing in the bathtub! I felt super connected to myself in that moment and that led me to ponder about time and the Theory of Relativity.
The idea that the past, present, and future are all happening at the same time.
Being an older person has the added benefit of being able to look deep into the past with a better understanding of what, why, and how things happened. More so to connect the past with decisions you’ve made as an adult.
Also, being an adult requires the skill of letting go as there will be many things that will remain in a dark abyss.
Nevertheless, I have learned to process events in a way that feels like who I am and what happened are two different histories. Or at the very least acknowledged and put back in the past where they belong.
One Body, One Mind
When I was between eight and ten years of age, I remember sitting on a log in a field next to our property. Thinking about it about a decade later I could retrieve the way I was feeling. Which was that all that I had was that moment. It felt as if all time was wrapped up in that tiny little space that I occupied.
I can’t remember what, if anything, happened beforehand that would cause me to be so pensive.
Now that I’m older I feel as if there is a (mostly) clearly defined past that co-exists with my future and all its possibilities in my head.
The past doesn’t feel so long ago because everything has been experienced in this one body that I inhabit. And the future doesn’t feel so far away because the potential that it possesses has all occurred in this one mind, in this body.
And sprouting from that is the idea that we live what we lived. In other words, whatever we experienced then resembles how we are living now.
Themes
Looking back at events, trauma, or traditions from your childhood could theoretically explain your adult life.
This is not a new concept by any means.
In my case, it struck me that being left behind as a child led me to choose a partner that was always leaving me behind.
That has been the theme of my whole life: Needing for someone to choose me and stay because my bio father left me behind and never looked back.
As well as rejecting those that offered their presence to me because it didn’t fit the theme of my life.
So, if I’m going to change the theme the second step, because the first step was acknowledgment, should be to let my heart and mind face my true reality. Not the one that was created by a circumstance and perpetuated by a child who could not know any better.
Who Stayed
As a child with an absent father, I adopted the phenomena that such a child learns. To focus on the one who left, not the one who stayed.
The child’s imagination readily fills in what they do not know. The absent parent is then romanticized, idolized, treasured, and given unearned respect.
Why is that? Because the child is trying to bring them back.
The one who stayed, stayed, so there is no need to do things to keep them. Things like appreciate them.
I also had another thought.
If my bio father was what I wanted and needed, he would be in my life. That epiphany allowed me to move on and accept that maybe him leaving me behind was a blessing after all.
My mom stayed and gave me everything I needed.
Throughout Our Lives
I feel so blessed that my Mom and I have both lived long enough to experience each other as adults, as women, as individuals. Knowing her has allowed me to know myself a little better.
Though, I wonder, can a person truly know themselves one hundred percent?
Throughout our lives we go through phases, identity crisis, growth and stagnation. We have epiphanies and then fall back into the dark ages.
We take accountability and then there are times when we refuse to accept and take responsibility for who we are.
Investigating yourself is a private, solitary quest of the most importance.
No need to go back in time. Your inner child is waiting for you within.
“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”
Henry David Thoreau
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