“Preserve your memories, keep them well, what you forget you can never retell.”
-Louisa May Alcott
Some things don’t deserve to be retold.
Every once in a while I’d come across my stash of journals. I’d turn them over in my hands trying to decide if I could stomach opening them. How bad a day was I interested in having? How hard was I willing to fall? Sometimes I’d flip through the pages, tumbling down, down, down, and other times I’d slip them back into their box, unopened. Secrets whispering out until the lid was closed.
On an unassuming day, with nothing more to do than clean, I opened that festering box. Tipped it quickly over the trash and watched each journal tumble out. I didn’t open them. I didn’t leaf through their pages. I tied the bag swiftly, hauled it down our apartment building hall, and tossed it down the shoot.
The memories those journals held are not lost. Unfortunately or not, they are seared in my mind, my heart, and my soul. The kind of indelible marks that shape you for better or worse. In that moment though, I was taking charge of my narrative. I was calling the shots. I was choosing not to put them away, but to purge them from the life I wanted.
I still keep notebooks but they aren’t diary entries. More like workbooks. Questions, and ideas, and lists, and dreams. Same with these posts. They are about looking forward not back. They are about me.
Reframing your perspective can start with the simplest change. Maybe it’s meditation, maybe it’s therapy, maybe it’s connecting with a loved one, maybe it’s throwing out a box of bullshit that no longer serves you.
Whatever your journey, I wish you life.
I wish you peace.
xxo
C
Bobbles&Buttons 