A PRESENT FROM THE PAST

I sit in front of you, but there is little love in my heart for what you represent to me. We share so many characteristics, parts of you, that are still with me. Our crazy laughter, driving curiosity and upside-down thoughts. Our minds have their differences though. The differences have created the divide where you have now become a familiar stranger, like a part of me that exists but I hate to acknowledge.

I feel like I am older but have never really outgrown you. Worse, the older I get, the more prominent you are in my mind, but you don’t build; you deconstruct. You make me self-conscious when I want to take important steps. Your voice whispers all the reasons why I would never be good enough, never be worthy enough. I think back to you, and I feel nothing but pain. It’s hard to hate you, hard to be disappointed, because, essentially, it means I am let down by myself. Yet, that is how it became. Many want to go back, and many want to have the chance to revisit their past, but I have no such desires. I wish to leave you in the past, to finally lock you in that time and let you fade from my memory, but you never do.

I heard someone say yesterday how they wished to change things from their childhood, not grow up too fast, and enjoy their childhood or correct mistakes. That’s the most relatable statement to me but to a certain degree. It is growing out of you that has made me the person I am today. If I go back to erase the things in you that I don’t like, then I fear I would become you. Once again, falling down the same pits and committing the same mistakes. Learning from your ignorance helped to create my own mindset and become more mature. I am actually glad I grew up fast, but I didn’t grow up fast enough when it comes to you. So many things I wish I could tell you not to do because they are the things that chain me to regret now. Yet, to tell you that would mean a part of myself would not exist now.

I don’t know what future me would be like, what parts of the present she would hate, so I can’t hold too much against you. In all fairness, you were a more ignorant version of me, but you were not all bad. What saddens me is that I can’t seem to focus on the best parts of you when I call you to mind. It’s like I filter everything that I should be proud of regarding you and feed to my eyes the things I am not too proud of. I am learning to forgive you, learning to accept your mistakes and not be too hard on you because it is not fair to us. I wonder if you would be proud of me if you could look forward and see how far I have come.

I am still alive, and time is still running up, so more versions of me will be looking back at you and me. I hope that as I get older, you stop feeling like my enemy, and we actually begin to grow together. You never meant to make me this way; of that, I am sure. I want to reconcile with you; love the me then so it would be easier to love the me now and grow to the me of the future.