THINKING ABOUT THE PAST

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Thinking Aloud On a Sunday

 

I’ve been thinking about thinking about the past! We’re always told to let the past go, and to live in the present. Sometimes it’s hard to do that. I wonder if, as we get older, we do it more? I mean, we have more past behind us than we have time in the future. And our future is often influenced by the past whether we like it or not.

I must admit that I do think of the past a lot, because my present is shit. And my future is even shittier! There was nothing that I could have done in the past that would have made my present much different. Oh I might have been richer. I might have been married to a different bloke. I might have been living in a different place. But fundamentally nothing would have been different. I would still have got cancer, and I would still have been blind. My life would still be as it is now.

I do think of the past and how I used to be, and of how in the blink of an eye things can change. Your whole life is completely altered and re-written. And it saddens me. I am sad. What makes me sadder than anything is that there is nothing I can do to change it. We all need hope. And particularly hope of change for the better. In my case that does not exist. I know with a certainty that what lies ahead of me is deterioration, and even more loss of any form of independence.

How do I feel about this? I feel despairing, at times. I feel sad. I feel angry. I grieve a lot.

But when all is said and done, I have to go on living, or trying to live, in the best way that I possibly can. Finding ways through. Finding ways of still existing as a person. Because this thing takes away your personhood if you are not careful.

I have to admit that I often feel envious. I read or hear of just ordinary things that people are doing, or even just hear them out in the street from my open bedroom window, and I have pangs of envy and jealousy.

I guess that somehow or other I will get through. But the future is frightening. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I shout. Sometimes I scream. These are all human things to do. But mostly I just endure, for it is the only way to get through. And that is my biggest hope of all – that I can just go on enduring.