Hunted by History

There are times when we try to outrun our history. We decide that we don't like it and we sometimes will rewrite our histories. The only problem with doing these things is that we can't. We don't get to run away and we don't get to rewrite.

In the past few weeks I've felt the hot breath of my past breathing down my neck. There are memories triggered by small things that make me feel completely lost and unable to fight back against what has happened, what I feel I have let happen to me. Most days I can outrun my past, or rewrite part of it, but I seem to be failing in both of those endeavours right now.

It's funny how we spend so much time focusing on our future, making plans and goals for the things we see coming while we are so unwilling to look back. Our past is something we see as a part of us, but not a part at all. We set it aside and don't necessarily allow it to play a part of our everyday lives. When it begins to affect our daily routines, we feel blindsided, almost offended that something we put away has the audacity to interfere in how we live.

The way our past comes up behind us is like being stalked. We have been hunted by something that is behind us. Something we are determined to run from. Many days we are able to succeed in running. There are just a few days when we are not able to. When our past catches up with us and we are completely incapacitated by something we had left behind. We will always be hunted by what we leave behind until we turn around and face it with the decision that we can't keep running for the rest of our lives. We can't allow for something to exhaust us and drain our emotions for the rest of our lives. We need to choose to make our past a part of ourselves no matter how bad it was. Because no matter how bad it was, it doesn't make us bad. It simply makes us strong. And the more we are willing to accept it, the stronger we become because we accept all parts of us and not just the easy ones. It is all these parts that make us who we are when we stop becoming prey to our past. We make so much more of ourselves that way. We become ourselves.