Moving On!

lonestar.Sat 07/06/08 21:20

Well I have to admit that this is a self indulgent post, it is about me, how I feel and how I'm dealing with those feelings.

Hopefully most of you will just move on to a more interesting post, but there may be a few of you who resonate with some of the content at least.

There comes a time in life when you need to move on, but you are held back by the baggage you carry, sometimes that baggage takes physical form and is sitting in boxes and folders that need to be sorted and shredded.

Well I have reached one of those crossroads, after my partner died and I was so ill, I never considered the possibility that I would ever meet somebody who I could want to share the future with, hell I couldn't even find drinking buddies. I have found somebody who rocks my boat in a way I didn't think possible, but every time I turn around I'm staring at the past, the good, and the bad, it's sitting there in boxes and folders. Sometimes I move something and out it falls, the thing that will remind me of what was missed, or the thing that will remind me of the good times.

Well, it is time, I accept the past, the good and the bad, I have known love and betrayal in equal proportions. I have a store of the wealth of experiences that I gained from my life so far. I am tired of being the repository of memories for others, I'm tired of holding on to the past when I so want to start experiencing the now and look forward to a potential future.

What is all this about you may ask, well some of you will know from my posts that I had a very close relationship for 28 years, one where I was monogamous and my partner sadly wasn't, he died of an aids related illness (I so like that bloody term), I prefer to call a pot a pot.

In the late 70's my partners mother got into financial difficulties and I bailed her out when her family wouldn't, in return she entrusted me with the only real family heirlooms that existed, also my partner left me the history of his family going back 300 years.

I am basically the last surviving member of my family, so I hold the past of all of them, the boxes contain the lives of my adoptive parents and their families, my natural family, my old partners family. My task has been to sort through it all and discard that which means nothing to anybody other than me, some things that still mean something to me I have held on to, some things that I know will mean a great deal to my old partners sister I have passed on to her (we have become quite close). Some things I have held onto for I don't know why, the documents relating to my fathers exposure during the Xmas island nuclear tests I still have.

I have kept more than I expected, I have shredded more than I believed possible, I am sad for the dreams of those whose pasts I have delved through, and the knowledge that they never attained those dreams

I am sad going through the past of my partner and I, the dreams and hopes, the achievements and the failures.

It has been hard to relive so much sadness, my childhood, the children's home, my natural family, my adoptive family. My life with Dave. Yes, there were happy times, but in some way's they just made the missed dreams all the sadder.

Well it is done, I have now disposed of 25 black bags of the past, I have retained a small part of it, some sad and some happy. I still hold the physical items that Dave's mum gave me to look after for future generations of her family (she died just a year after passing them to me), after her death the locusts descended and tore apart anything I didn't have. I'm not ready yet to let go of these items, they are mine and in my keeping and give me joy and remind me of the good times.

That said, I look over my shoulder now and the past has been put to rest, yes I remember it, yes I feel sad for all those lost dreams, but I am more ready for dealing with the future.

A future filled with blank pages and new dreams, only the future knows how any of us will fair, but I have my fingers crossed it will build on the past and be a good future.

So it turns out that this post is about dealing with the past and facing the future!