The idea that your past remains all-important and that, because something once strongly influenced your life, it has to keep determining your feelings and behavior today.
So, I pulled up this post an hour after I saw the headline for an article about how middle school is so miserable. I haven’t read it yet, but I retweeted it and talked about how the 7th grade was the worst year of my life. It was worse than the year my parents divorced. It was worse than the year I had cancer. It was worse than the year I spent underemployed in a strange city.
And sometimes, I still feel as though I am affected by those years.
But why should I be?
After all, those years were over 20 years ago. I am not the same person I was at the time. The good news is that the pain and memories fade. When I tried to remember why the 7th grade was so painful, it was hard for me to remember.
I suppose this is a good thing. Our memories fade. Perhaps that is something we need to remember about painful memories and experiences; most of those memories will fade. We kind of do this already. We say to ourselves, “One day we’ll look back on this and laugh.” And many times this is true.
emmasrandomthoughts 