Sunday, November 30, 2008

The One Limb You can Never Lose.

I have a problem, i Have a secret invisible limb permanently attached to me. If this was something abnormal growth, maybe i could just go to the doctor and have it removed. Not only is it invisible, but it is intangible as well. I encounter hundreds of people throughout the week, no one sees it, no one feels it, no one but me is even aware that it exist. Survivors of horrible accidents report that even after they have lost a limb, sometimes they feel like it is still there, an itch on a unscratchable non-existing limb (A worse fate i can not imagine) . Yet all the limbs i was born with are intact. In fact over the course of my life i seem to have grown a new one, and it shows no sign of slowing down. This new appendage is my past. Despite my best efforts to remove it, it has held firm. No matter where you go, how far you go, what you do, or what you believe, our past is with us until we are no longer with this place. The good and the bad, the painful, the pitiful, the joyful, it is always with us, somewhere deep in that brain of your threatening to reveal itself no matter what circumstance you currently find yourself in. Every single moment of your life has been recorded and documented first hand. Even the things you don't remember right now are hiding, just waiting for some random event to jog that random memory out into the glorious sunlight of consciousness. This morning I sat drinking my coffee watching the cold winter rain fall on my porch. I suddenly remembered being a young child sitting in my mothers Citation watching the rain drops falling into large puddles outside. I was the only one in the car at the time, and the solitary feeling of the moment mirrored my current one to the most finite degree.
For a moment I pictured myself as a four or five year old boy starting at the forming puddles and placed it juxtapose my current self and a wave of indescribable emotion washed over me. The day before something else made me remember a embarrassing encounter I had with a girl as a young teenager, yet the memory was so strong that I could feel the hot flush of blood on my cheeks as if it had just happened. Why do our memories haunt us so strongly? Remembering that fire is hot, or that you can't breath under water...all very useful. But why so strongly? Do i need to feel the pain of old relationships, to remember the day my step father was thrown in jail, the phone call i got when someone committed suicide. Not all are bad, there was my first kiss, the love i felt for another person, the thrill of my first roller coaster. I'm not sure about the rest of you but even these supposed good memories are tinged with a bit of remorse, and sadness. Sadness of good times gone and never to be seen again. Each precious memory we pull out is unique and special, there will never be another like it ever again. We may try to replicate some once in awhile, but even those are just fabrications of the original.
Some times i feel like Bill Bixbys' character.
No, no not the Hulk, Bill Bixby

At the end of every episode he had to leave the people and friends he just met behind. He was constantly on the run, both from his past and the people looking for him. No matter where he went his past always would catch up with him. Our past is ours, its part of us. Running away from it, trying to hide from it only makes it more emphatic when it does find us. The trick is to learn from it. Keep it with you embrace it. Being ashamed of your past is about as silly as being ashamed of your arm. No matter what it will still be your arm so learning to live with it is the only option. To some the past is a wonderful path full of different adventures, stories, and experiences. To some it is a deep dark and dirty place that they want to hide from everyone around them. I can't say I blame them there are horrible things that happen in this world, once they happen there is nothing we can do to change them. What you do with your past influences your future. Take your past, make it yours. Believe in yourself and know that the past is the past it will never be exactly reproduced. tomorrow is the future that is what we all should be looking forward to with smiles on our faces. The past is set in stone. The future...oh the possibilites the future can bring are as endless as the dark sky above. Don't be haunted by a past you can not change. There will always be a tomorrow.

1 comment:

mandy jeanne said...

"teach us to care and not to care/ teach us to sit still" ts eliot

((i dont know it felt appropriate))