This is a short blog. I read a quote yesterday from William Faulkner that has been bobbing around my brain for the past 36 hours: "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
It isn't, is it? It haunts us or taunts us or tickles us all the time. What we think is gone is still here. People die, yes, but if we loved them, they aren't really gone. Deeds, misdeeds, transgressions, acts of kindness, acts of cruelty, it's all still with us. We are the sum of ourselves and we carry around all the joy, hurt, anger, love, happiness, grief, everything we have ever experienced. We think we "get over" things and there is no way to "get over" the past. Deal with it, sure, but we still put things in tidy boxes and put them on shelves. And that's fine with me. I am fine with trying to match up how we feel about the then with how we feel about the now.
Disappointment abounds but so does hope. Sadness wears us down but the prospect of joy keeps us from becoming threadbare.
I am going to go outside now and sit on the patio and listen to the rain.
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