History is my story
A few nights ago, I was watching Emmitt Smith’s story on Who Do You Think You Are. As he was uncovering his ancestry, he said “history is not the past; history is my story” (or something to that effect).
That got me thinking. So often, I hear the past is the past, but it’s not true. The past is in us; it is us. It shapes us and affects us – we are who we are because of it.
What we consider our past becomes the present, the future, and then the past again. It is fluid – creeping up when we least expect it.
On occasion, the past surfaces and dominates the present. That happened to me today and it made me realize that I can never extricate myself from my experiences or the people with whom I shared them (for better or worse). They are part of me – I can’t escape them, or erase them, or even ignore them.
Everything that has happened to me up until this very moment has contributed to who I am, where I am, and with whom I share my life. For that, I am grateful. If given the chance, I would not change any of the bad, for fear of affecting the good. However, there are some experiences that I never want to repeat and there are some people whom I never want to see, speak to, or acknowledge again. Ever.
I am certain that at some point in my future, my past will creep into the present and slap me in the face again. When that happens, I will deal with it much as I did today. Accept it, render it powerless, and move on. Eventually, it might stop creeping up, creeping in, or creeping, in general. One can hope, anyway.
