Don’t you just hate it when a memory of how someone hurt you comes back to haunt you time and time again? It lies dormant on the back burner of your brain and boom, it emerges loud and clear as though it happened yesterday – it quickly becomes like a movie reel, playing those old movies that should have been left in the can. With all this new-found leisure time in retirement, thinking about the past is a common, popular trend or so I hear.
It happens to me (and I’m not even retired!) now and then when triggered with a photo, something someone said or did, something I read or see. I hate when that happens! It brings back that old hurt feeling and puts me in a bad mood – so I’ve got to spend the time and effort to get back to being okay with myself.
The recollection of these hurtful moments for me include: an ex-fiancé in college who broke my heart, a boss who talked about me in front of her friends (it was so obvious!) in another language as they all laughed (not allowing me to defend myself – she spoke English fluently), the guy at the supermarket who screamed at me for having coupons (I did wait in line behind other people who had coupons!), a relative who told me and my mother that I was not dressed appropriately in that mini-skirt, the teacher who talked down to my immigrant parents, a friend who dated my boyfriend – and that boyfriend who dated my friend, the man who kept slamming the tray behind my airplane seat and the airline crew that did nothing about it, the boy-friends mother who snubbed me cause I wasn’t rich enough, the part I didn’t get in a play because I wasn’t “hanging out” with the director, and all those times that I never spoke up for myself when I should have.
I’ve got some work to do on stopping that thought process…it’s like a hang nail that you can’t stop picking at. When I start those scenes in my head, I try to force myself to go in another direction. I say WRITE! And from there I begin to think of blog ideas about how we are preparing to retire and what is on our list of what to do when we retire to keep busy and active.
Letting go is a 2-step process. Forgiving those people who behaved badly is the first step to forgetting, which is the 2nd step. After all, their conduct was more telling about who they are as people than anything else. They and the re-hashing of these negative experiences have taken up space in my mind, for free, for decades. I need that space to be able to fill it with new memories to be made now as we explore new activities, new travel and new friends.
The upcoming chapters will lead to the grand finale of a life well-lived. I’ve got to get through those chapters to see how it all turns out…and in order to do that, I’ve got to get away from the past chapters and turn the page.
We are on it!
Helene
Turning the page photo From The Personal Collection of Helene and Zaf
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