9/10/23 (The Past) in Onward Into Etc.!

Being “old” feels new to me,
as sense of wonder about it.
If I had been aware of Age,
I would felt how new being a child was
a Boy
A Teen
A Young Man
A Middle-aged Man.
Had I been aware of Age as I am Now
Most days of my life would have been shining with a sense of wonder
Of being in the moment
Not looking back
Looking HERE
Now
In the wonder of every stupid brilliant painful joyful moment.

We are never to old or young to feel and embrace the NOW.

Most of my life was physical labor. Survival and looking for that paycheck every Friday. Something I looked forward to or felt some shame about for missing an our or few. I felt good about paying the rent and utilities and being self-supporting. It was life. Injury and pain were life. The challenge of staying on my feet and not letting the factory break me.

But the factory broke first.
It went out of business and yes I DO write about it often. A therapist told me the experience of loss of THAT LIFE was Traumatic. Like so many other events of my past were. It’s been over 2 years and I have adapted. Sort of. It is fortunate that I have always like being a homebody. I found with this new life to look forward to getting money once a month from Social Security and having Medicare for my health. I had never envisioned all this. It was so cliche to me about old people living off Social Security and more. Pensions and retirement I did not have. I paid into the SS for all my working years. Every week money was taken out of every check. It’s like a paycheck from the past for me now. But I feel strange waiting to see the money deposited in my bank account so that I can buy more food and pay the bills and rent.I am not relying on my own body being healthy enough to work and survive to work. I am relying on the government to continue to function for me to get that monthly money. There has been a huge sigh of relief when I see the money in my checking account. This month marks 2 years of getting SS. I was fortunate to work so long and be healthy enough to.

For a time I was suicidal with a lack of purpose. Self-destructing. I got help. I have also had to learn a huge lesson and work on the practice of it.

The past does not matter much.
Yes I just talked about some of it. But I try not to DWELL on it. The past traumas of my life. The stupid painful shit. BECAUSE IT IS OVER AND THERE IS NO WAY TO CHANGE IT. Or bring back old girlfriends or dead family and pets.
GONE
Sure there are vague memories of so much that elicit emotion in me but I try not to go there anymore. Let that shit go. Hey wanna talk about this or that? No let me. I lived it and got very very tired of living it over and over again in my mind. Or comparing how I was to how I am now and who and what I became.

So much horror fiction is about raising the dead. In a way we often try to do that with our memories.

Sometimes I HAVE had new insights as an adult of what happened to me when I was younger. I learn from it but then go and put that box back with the others in the attic or cellar of my mind.
That was useful or that was bullshit. Time to move on.

It occurred to me recently the idea or even cliche of “daddy never loved me!” Probably true. If I had asked him when he was alive he would have lied or avoided the question or turned it against me. He was a DUTIFUL parents but not a loving one. I am sure I was an embarrassment to him and he often resented me for that. Sometimes he allowed that resentment to come out as moral righteousness in beating me. Oh my trauma!

But with such insights?
Cannot make a dead parent love you so let it go. It is all the past.
What I can do is live NOW and not be like THAT. Love more in life. Forgive and let go as I have been practicing.

My dentist noticed a big change in me in the past couple years. At first I was a horrible emotional mess but then I would go in all full of jokes and laughter. Who is that? It is my Authentic Self. I like him. Bringing up stuff about the past is not HIM NOW. Let it go. Be this person NOW.

At times I think of people from my past and wonder about them. Then I get a grip and keep teaching myself to let them go. Past loves. Past passions and past friends and worse. Don’t think about what could have been or what I could have done had ____. Fuck it. Wasted moments on NOW. If I met someone from 50 years ago or less, I know I would not recognize them nor they, me.

It does not matter.
What TRAUMA I suffered in the past does not matter because I look at how I am NOW and despite or because of that shit, I became the good loving person I am now.

I have wondered about regrets and realized my greatest regret is that I spent too much damned time in the present, staring backward into my past. A past that does not matter NOW.

I have found that we can, I can fine-tune myself. Like working on a machine. Something not working right inside and makes painful noises, try to repair it and bring it peace. Don’t prod it with a knife. Offer it a hug, grow from it then put it to sleep.