Delete Your History
My buddy Hagan and I were talking about how painful Facebook’s “on this day” post reminder thing is.
How many times do you see that come up and feel a strange distance between who you are now and who you were. Its amazing how our attitudes, expectations, even word usage change.
Whoever I am now is standing on a giant mound of all the me’s I used to be.
Child me, Blues Traveler is the best band ever me, speaking in tongues me, saving my virginity for marriage me, ignorant me, raw nerve me, Danish student me, bitter me, moving back into my mother’s house broke me, slut me, monogamy me, etc..
Some of those rolls will come back around and that is ok. Some of those will never come back.
When I am sad, or anxious, it feels like all the worst versions loom around the house. Like a pile of goodwill clothes I have yet to surrender to one of those modified dumpsters. I look at them and I am reminded of history, and the chore of getting rid of them and I put them off for another day.
If this year has taught me one thing, it has taught me that if I want to have a better 2019, there is a lot of 1983-2018 that can’t come with.
I am in my bones a very earnest person. Maybe its the Christian roots, maybe its the Scorpio, maybe its the desire to be liked. I have always and I mean always been trying my best and trying to be good to people.
Like you, some times that has worked for me, other times against me. We all fall from our own ideals.
But now, I’m starting to see the value of deleting the past.
What I don’t mean is forgetting the lessons. I don’t mean covering up mistakes. What I mean is releasing the gnawing desire to balance the budget of who you were. There are some things that will never resolve. The need for resolution can drive you mad. But its a false expectation that all things are entitled to have a satisfying ending.
When I was a musician, I used to be reminded of songs I wrote early on and it was absolutely torturous how clearly I remember every note of my bad songs. Part of me would want to rework them. Not because I believed in them, but as a way to save myself from the pain of my own judgement.
This year, my goal is to delete shit like that. Show mercy for myself and for who I used to be. To use that revisionist energy and put it in a more productive direction. Which is right now.
2019 for me is letting shit go, traveling as light as possible, trying to make the invisible visible, only putting my hands on things I believe in.
For all the people who have supported me this year and in years past, you have all my love and I carry you everywhere.
If you like what I write, did you know I wrote a book? For real, check it out here.