past present tense
June 28, 2013 § 6 Comments
This day seems to linger in distraction. Efforts at industry seem empty and directionless. I am unsettled, uncertain where to begin. Carefree days of busyness allowed me to shuffle decisions among indecisive possibilities, now time seems to be holding me tightly to emotions that demand attention.
The question: Do I return to a place from which I eagerly escaped, never looking over my shoulder to remember the way?
It is the eve of my 20th high school reunion. My connection to classmates is limited to the impersonal voyeurism of social media. Still, time and relationships with others have found new meaning in motherhood. A nagging curiosity and a previously dismissed connectivity to pieces of my past have fostered feelings of doubt for feigned disinterest.
No longer do I see my classmates through the narrow perspective of a self-centered teenager, overwhelmed by her own burdens. Instead they have become a cast of characters veiled in mystery for the unknown. The wanderers whose stories I am curious to hear.
The word reunion taunts an undercurrent of truth racing through my heart and mind with an intensity that seems to suffocate the air around me. The physical space of a place once my home is haunted by ghosts that cannot die.
Truth: I am hiding from memories of myself and a collision between the past and present. Do I meet myself among old harms, or do I stay present allowing the past to slumber?
In much the same way I scribbled my heart into the folds of old letters passed between the hallowed halls of high school, these are the words caught between breaths I cannot take and decisions I am struggling to make from conversations unspoken.
To my father,
I wonder if the calendar has marked my absence these past twenty years? If you found my truths in my absence or if we carry our own wounds too close to see each others’ heartache.
Here is the thing I could not say – it was never that I didn’t love you, it was needing to be loved in return. The impossible standards and ever-present disappointment, fear for your anger and empty trust that opened the door to my departure. I was a shadow long before I left, simply feeding off the light of hope waiting for you to materialize.
I forgave you quietly over time, but I never outgrew the hurt that accompanies old wounds. Between us we are caught in memories and faded photographs from another lifetime.
If I return I move into the past as a mother, unable to invite harm or inherent tragedy to the children I guard from heartache. They are my promise to myself.
When I imagine the possibility of sharing a sidewalk with my past in present tense, I mostly miss what never was.
M
scribblechic 
It has been my experience that the greatest longing is tied not to what was done but to what was not. Wishing you the best on the leg of the journey that lies just ahead.
Thanks! Weighing might-have-been and could-be for the path of least regret.
I think our connections always continue. We are bound to others by way of emotion and memory, both positive and negative, even when physically absent. We never achieve a truly blank state-the question is what do we do about those connections?
Wishing you luck with your own, I always go with my gut.
My gut summersaults back and forth. For now I am committing to whim, waiting for the day of to decide.
I went to one high school reunion. I hated it. I have my own issues with my dad that are compounded by the fact that he now needs his children. Caring about him doesn’t come easily after years of his neglect and hostility.
Reading this I was humbled by the vastness of your compassion and generosity in assuming the role of caretaker for your father. You are an amazing woman.