MEMORIES

Sometimes we have opportunities to revisit the past. Our recollection isn't always the same as that of someone else. 

Maybe you've never talked about it. You just filed it all away and closed the door. You covered Memory Lane with a thick layer of asphalt, blocked it, and surrounded it with a high wall...and a moat...and a dragon...so that you, or no one else would be tempted to travel that road again. 

It's funny how our perceptions of the same thing can be so different!

 

While you were in pain, someone else may have been feeling fine. 

While you were sad, someone else was laughing. 

While you were discouraged, someone else was motivated. 

While you were less than enthusiastic, someone else thought it, (whatever "it" was), was the best thing on Earth. 

While you were in doubt, someone else was overly confident. 

While you knew the truth, someone else was feeding on, and spreading lies. 

While you were cast aside, someone else may have been considered indispensable. 

While you were denied, someone else may have prospered. 

While someone else was enriched, you may have been in want. 

While you gave, someone else took. 

While you were misjudged, someone else was promoted. 

It only takes one thing: the unfortunate or unkind words or actions of one person, to color an entire experience as horrible and unmemorable. 

Time and discernment have a way of making things clearer, though. Maturity opens your eyes to see the jewels you almost disposed of. You find yourself:

Laughing at the thing that made you cry,

Thanking God you didn't get stuck with the thing, or in the place you didn't think you could do without 

Feeling grateful you were told "no",

Shaking your head over every discouraging word that you thought mattered so much,

Smiling to yourself when you encounter the people who thought for sure they were superior in skill, more attractive, more hip, and more knowledgeable. 

You're genuinely gracious when you see those who were confident that you needed their approval, references, and platforms in order to succeed--and amazed that they're either still smarting because their schemes failed, or trying to get back into your good graces. At one time, they wanted nothing more than for you to feel insecure, be excluded, or disappear altogether. Now, they want to be where you are.

You don't gloat. You just thank God he allowed you to come full circle, unscathed. 

You're still here.

Rescue and celebrate the pleasant experiences from the dust. Find the good and the beauty. Think of all that it taught you. 

Do the work to weed out the junk, and preserve the good stuff and the good people. When you allow yourself to remember (not wallow, not dwell, not obsess, or regret, mind you), there's probably more of "it" and "them" than your fiercely protected heart and wounded soul has previously allowed you to recall. 

Pictures have an amazing way of reminding you it wasn't all bad.