I find it hard not to live in the past sometimes...
I can find myself thinking about the good old days in college, when I was really pretty care free. I remember playing soccer for all those years when I was younger and could run up and down the soccer field without getting winded. I reminiscence about all the camping and backpacking I did when I went to UNC Asheville. I miss being outdoors! I miss going to the beach for a week with my family and eating as much of the banana nut sheet cake from Sara Lee as I could! I can taste the frosting as I sit here and write this.
Those are great memories, but I also remember a lot of things that I wish I could change. I wish that I would of known in college that I was good at working with young people. I would of gotten an education degree or gone to divinity school. My failed marriage is sometimes a burden to look back on because it reminds me of how unhappy I was for such a long time. All the fights will my brother over the years that were probably pretty normal for kids our ages but I often wish we were closer. I wish I knew now just how much of an impact my Grandpa Swanson was having on my life. I would of worked harder to foster that relationship.
I believe the hardest part of the past are relationships that I have lost over the years. My friends from High School, my college fraternity brothers, my YMCA kids, even youth that graduated and left our program here at the church.
There are two things in my life right now that have been making me think a lot about the past. The first is that I just recently lost my Grandmother. All though I hadn't had a close relationship with her for a long time, I loved her and she was the last of my Grandparents. I have been reminiscing a lot about her and just life in general as I start to work on her funeral service.
The other thing is that I have a good friend that I have been really close to for a long time. Lately I have noticed that I am not needed as much as I once was, that I have taken a lesser role in their life than I did in the past. Others have come along and taken my place where I once was needed and wanted. I get it because it is time for that friend to grow and flourish and go out into the world and make it their own, but at the same time I am holding on to the past and the relationship that we had instead of growing and evolving into this new dynamic of our relationship.
Our pasts are important. I don't want to change my past, I love who I am and where I am in the world today. I love my job, all of MY kids, my friends, my family, my wife, and myself.
Living in the past can be dangerous because we want things to remain the same or we just relive painful memories over and over again. We are all molded by the winds of time. Some of that time is in past but the most important times are now and in the future. We have to embrace where we are in the world today and not allow our pasts to dictate who we are or who we are going to be..
Remember the past, plan for the future, live in the now!
