The Key to Accepting Your Past is to Create an Optimistic Vision of the Future
How our unavoidable encounters with reality instill a greater appreciation for the present moment
As a writer, I’ve received lots of feedback and comments through the years. Some notes were positive, thoughtful, and supportive. Others, cautiously neutral. And a few were downright scathing.
One of the books that generated a large amount of email is The Possibilities of Amy. Right after its release, I was inundated with revealing messages filled with poignant and bittersweet stories of high school romances that never came to fruition.
In hindsight, it seems that taking a look at our adolescence produces as much frustration as nostalgia.
But we were young and naïve (some of us, anyway) and our old friends — reason and logic — were often overwhelmed by hormone-charged emotions.
To be fair, not all feedback was focused on the teen years. For example, one person wrote, “Sometimes when I think about my twenties, I’m certain I would have been better off if I’d put my life-clock on hold and skipped the decade entirely.”
Another reader summed up her twenties in two words: “Surprise and disappointment.”
Their comments stirred my own memories from that same 10-year time-span.
Reflecting on those misty, watercolor memories, I uncovered the usual imprints collected by most young people rushing through their twenties.
My mind reluctantly retrieved visions of a too-soon first marriage, the shock-waves of divorce, an uncomfortable sense of frustration and helplessness over death, and the nagging guilt that rose from goodbyes never intended to be permanent.
In short, life was very different from the magical whirlwind of optimism and opportunity portrayed by a media-inspired youth culture and its not-so-subtle suggestion that a fresh, unlined face was a first class ticket to new adventures and assured success.
Maybe that’s the problem.
For most of us, the reality of our young adult years was a far cry from the never-ending peak experience we believed — trusted — it would to be.
Our generation had expectations beyond those of the previous — or any generation since. We wanted the right occupation — one providing an outlet for personal expression and an opportunity to make a unique and lasting impact on the world. Determined not to separate our personal life from the professional, we promised ourselves the two would flow together, blending in a synergistic ooze of Peter Max graphics and Desiderata posters.
And when it came to relationships, we insisted our chosen mate have the perfect amount of yin to balance our yang.
When we experienced one of our periodic but certain sexual lows, we told ourselves we could top off our tanks with an occasional sniff from the flower garden across the street or next door — depending on who was home.
Instead of distracting our minds with a constant flow of extraneous and superfluous information from the internet, smart phones, or cable TV, we filled our brains with concepts, visualizing our lives as an expandable space in which to create a compelling destiny — EST bubbles, inflated with honest intention and designed to accommodate our finest moments.
But for reasons that still escape us, they were never developed — leaving the void unoccupied.
Why do we have all these vacancies?
In retrospect, the answer seems clear: I think we overbuilt our lives and expectations. So now — twenty or thirty or forty years later — we join a gym, cut back on desserts, and hope our friends notice how much younger we look.
And yet there is a nagging thought persistently haunting our efforts. Even if we were able to force our bodies into double overtime and score just one dream performance, the effort would be out of sequence — nothing more than a belated consolation for what might have been.
It’s an inescapable paradox of life, and the irony couldn’t be more clear.
The difference between making it real and compensating for reality continues to be driven apart by the wedge of time. Which brings me to the ultimate question: Now what?
Are we resigned to face each other in yoga class and ponder the strength of those invisible threads that connect us — to each other, to the big picture, to monkeys on an island whose name we can’t pronounce?
Or do we take a less physically demanding approach and shop for a comfy overstuffed rocker to fritter away the days, trying to remember that exact moment when circumstances scrubbed our chance to be an original in a world choking with boring predictability and repetition?
All heady stuff — but not very productive.
Life is far too short — and precious — to waste.
Spending what’s left of our existence in a constant state of contemplation and frustration can be costly, especially as we get older and time becomes more valuable — and we have more to be introspective about.
Perhaps the key to dealing with the past is to value the perspective it can bring to the future. Hidden in our angst, there is purpose and, even more important, promise.
Our bittersweet memories of lost love, fortune, and prosperity can become gentle reminders that life is simply what we choose to make of it.
And the best we can do is to periodically examine our lives, check our direction, and make minor adjustments.
Maybe that’s been the plan all along. Like a pre-designed blueprint, we were meant to spend the first thirty to forty years or so getting acquainted with ourselves, and then take a step back and begin listening to the feedback from our souls.
The fact that we feel a bit of disappointment — even frustration — are all signs of a working receiver.
There’s something very liberating about facing the demons of our youth. Our unavoidable encounters with reality instill a greater appreciation for the “now,” giving us the courage to move forward with not only a calm acceptance of the past, but an optimistic resolve for the future.
Maybe Forrest Gump had it right all along — except in my case, life is just a box of Good & Plenty.
Until next time,
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Jaye Frances is the author of the suspense thriller trilogy World Without Love. Her other books include The New Girl in Town, The Beach, The Kure, and Love Travels Forever. Storyteller, truth-seeker, and optimist, Jaye explores relationships, philosophy, and the complexities of life - a day at a time. Jaye’s books are available at JayeFrancesBooks.com