Archives

I was on the phone with Brian tonight and he played a little game with me called "name the year and month of this blog post." I guess he had been reading my blog and decided to quiz me on my own life. Brian is an avid reader of my blog but more importantly a supporter of my life, in general, that I couldn't do without. I digress. Anyway, in this game that Brian created he would read me an excerpt from an entry in my old blog archives and I was supposed to try to remember what I was talking about and when it occurred. In other words he was going back into the archives to a random year, month and day, then selecting a post and reading only a paragraph from that entry.

Now, I'm not saying I won the game or anything, but I did remember writing each and every thing he read to me, what I was feeling when I wrote it and why it was being written.

After we got off the phone I decided to peruse the archives myself, something I've done maybe twice. Wow. I can hear myself talking and remember the exact things I was thinking at the time as I read the old posts. I have got to say, I am actually pretty thankful I've had this thing for so long. Sometimes I don't take it seriously at all. Brian asked me if I had looked into backing the information up somehow, so that nothing would ever destroy it. I laughed at first, but then thought.. "maybe there's something to that."

This blog, though it is often discussing surface-level topics, is indeed a window into my past, present and somehow even my future. Granted it isn't in "dear diary" style and hardly contains my 'deepest darkest secrets,' I still get to peek into what I was going through and thinking about at a specific time over the past several years, if even frivolous. If the topic is of emotional seriousness to me, I often write in code, so as not to be blatant about what is upsetting me or I'm feeling (one of those "names are changed to protect the innocent" things). But when I look back on these posts I know exactly what I was talking about, even if I'm speaking in metaphors and examples so as not to publicly display my insides.

Looking back on these past entries helped me remember to not sweat the small stuff. One of the excerpts Brian read to me from my own blog was from an entry titled "hot plate" I believe. In that post I discussed how I always am tempted to touch a hot plate if a waiter brings food to the table and says "now be careful, this plate is very hot." Against better judgment and a warning from someone who should be trusted.. I touch the hot plate anyway just to see for myself. I told Brian that when I wrote that, I was deeply upset about someone who hurt me emotionally. I remember exactly what I was feeling and I can recall that the metaphor symbolized, to me, that though I had been warned about this person, I proceeded forward anyway so I could find out for myself. Like touching a hot plate you JUST were told is hot, I needed to get physically burned before I wanted to believe it was true. Sometimes that's the best way, to find out for yourself. We can't have other's make a decision for us, even if they know the 'plate is hot.' The interesting thing is, however, I don't even remember who the person was!

Somehow this made me feel very comforted tonight. A reminder that, a few years down the road, the things that seem so troubling at the present, so HUGE right now, wont even matter. Sure, I'll remember feeling bad about it. If reminded of a situation in a game of "Name That Blog Post" I will recall the situation in a very "oooh yeahhhh!!" kind of way. But in all actuality I may not even remember the names of the key players (case and point: "hot plate." I can't remember the name of the person I was referencing!).

We're resilient, us human beings.

Sure, some things we never get over, but for every sadness that seems so giant in that moment, our lives will be blessed with a hundred little happinesses that make us slowly forget that we ever felt a pang of hurt.

Like driving away from a bad situation and watching it get smaller and smaller in your rear-view mirror, the details surrounding circumstances that are currently so difficult will soon fade into a spec-sized memory as we hurdle towards our future. Along the way passing a million joys that make life so very worth living. After all, when I went back and read some of these archived blog posts of mine, it was the happy stories that I recalled with the most vivid memory. So vivid that I could almost taste the moment again. And the sad ones? Well, upon revisiting them they barely had any flavor at all.

Float on,
M.db