memories and expectations

 I don't look at the past with bitterness or sorrow, I just see it as things that happened yesterday. Neither good nor bad, just what was. All of that is of course simply my perspective. Each of us live in our own world with our thoughts, dreams and expectations. The past continues to fill with every day that passes and so there is no end until there is. Whether I will be aware of that or not is something I often wonder about, something my thoughts turn too. But I can't really render a final judgement on the past until it is over and that's why I look at the past the way I do. 

 I tell my wife my stories. She often remarks what good memories I have. I wouldn't argue with that, I do have many pleasant memories. They are the memories I choose to remember. Now she didn't grow up in the same town as I did, she has never even been to the town I grew up in, and so has no memories of that place. It's not a sad thing to her or me, in fact, probably an advantage. She can't dispute any of the facts I present about that time. The same is true when she tells me stories about her youth. I can't dispute a thing she says as I have no knowledge of any of that. Sometimes, well truth be told, most of the time when we are telling our stories we don't want to be challenged. Think about it, isn't it annoying when you are telling a story and your sibling interjects saying, that isn't how it happened. Don't you feel like you are the authority when it comes to your stories? I certainly do. That's what I'm thinking about.

 I think the best thing about the past is that you get to build it. You get to piece it together any way you like. I was there! I tend to do that by exclusion. I just leave out the parts I don't want to relate. I don't forget about the other parts, that's not what I mean, I just keep them to myself. In my experience people generally don't want to hear about your failures and shortcomings. In my experience those close to you already know all of that. Now, there are those that haven't traveled the entire road with you, and they don't know. That's not an excuse to fabricate stories, to, shall we say, embellish the story, but selective editing is certainly permissible. You know, like the things you tell your children about when you were growing up. The whole do as I say, not as I have done thing. No, you don't want them to know you have "done" that. 

 I try to create an unspoiled past. It never actually existed but that's not important to today. Today is what is important. By remembering the past, today can be made better. The older we get the more we live in the past. That's just a simple fact of life. That isn't to say that we aren't looking to tomorrow, I believe we all do that no matter our age, but when we have more memories than expectations, we begin living in the past. That is to say, what is reasonably to be expected. Odds are if you haven't accomplished whatever it is by now, you probably won't. Not that it should be viewed as a failure, just that it wasn't a part of the past. Call it fate or destiny, whatever you like. Does circumstance alter destiny, or destiny influence circumstance? You don't have control over either one. You can control the past, to a degree anyway. At least in the stories you tell. What did you expect?