The past. A four-letter word loaded with emotion. It has been on my mind lately in more ways than one. The holidays will do that, especially this year. It is almost impossible not to compare to the years prior. The years when both of my grandfathers were alive, and we were still creating memories instead of just looking back on them. The past is nostalgia. The past is also pain.

This year for Thanksgiving I was not surrounded by family, but I was lucky enough to be with close friends. For that, I am grateful. It is 2020 and I am still alive creating new memories. These are words that not everyone can write. This year has taken a lot from people.

In therapy, we talk about the past a lot. Sometimes we focus on the more recent past – what happened yesterday, last week, or last month. Other times we travel back to the more distant past. Childhood. We are constantly discussing our families of origin.

I’ve struggled with this. Looking backwards. Does it help or does it hurt?

At times it has felt like unnecessary dwelling. Why would I want to spend dedicated time reliving painful experiences? Been there. Felt that. I’m paying you to make me feel better.

Other times it feels circular and I just feel powerless. I’m focusing on experiences that I cannot change. It goes something like this:

Me: I feel shitty. Help me understand why I feel so shitty.

Therapist: Remember, you’ve had some shitty experiences.

Me: Oh yes, now I remember.

Me again: ……still feeling shitty……

I imagine this is why plenty of people don’t go to therapy. This dwelling on your pain. It either feels pointless or overwhelming. I feel you, people.

But the thing is we relive the past all the time, sometimes without even realizing it. We relive it through our behavior. Every.Damn.Day. Our earliest joys become what we strive for. Our pain becomes the makings of the shields we build to protect ourselves.

Seek joy.

Avoid pain.

Repeat.

So I don’t have a choice, but to go back and to hold on to it. Really hold on to it. Even though I don’t want to. This is something I’ve realized only recently. I’ve let myself believe I’m a pretty open book when it comes to sharing my past. In some ways I have been. But I’ve been selective regarding the memories I share and the way I’ve shared them. I say the words, but more times than not, I haven’t felt the feelings. Not really. I’ve said the words as if they are someone else’s story. As a matter of fact. “I felt pain,” I say, straight-faced. Perhaps I throw in a little self-deprecating humor afterword or a cliché.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?”

I can probably count on two hands the number of times I’ve broken down in therapy. In over a decade.

Maybe it is strange, but I want to break down. I want to loosen the grip. I want to feel.

So I will share my past and it begins now:

When I was young, very young, around four or five years old, my mom started struggling with significant digestive issues, ulcerative colitis. I can’t remember exactly when I became aware of this, but at some point I realized she was sick. She was at the doctor a lot and then the hospital. My grandparents were over a lot.

Maybe around seven or eight years old, I had trouble when she left the house and at night. I remember like it was yesterday running to the window and watching her pull out of the driveway. I would plant my face against the window and watch her drive away until I couldn’t see her car anymore. If I could not get to the window, I would panic and worry she would not come back.

At night I would tell my family goodnight and I love them over and over again. Either until I fell asleep or my parents urged me get to bed already. When my sister and I shared a room, I would make her face me as we both fell asleep. I would beg. She would get annoyed and complain to my parents. Other nights I would be unable to fall asleep unless my dollhouse was in perfect order down to the miniature silverware on the miniature table. It would nag at me if anything was out of place.

I was a child living in fear. I know this now. I’m not sure if I knew it then. I don’t think I did.

What I felt was “not okay” and I grasped at what I could to feel okay and get through the night.

The other thing I felt was “different”. I knew enough to know this was not exactly “normal” behavior. I did not see my sister and brother doing this. Instead, it was something we joked about and still do from time to time. Crazy Sarah.

Even after all these years it is hard for me to go back to that place. To be honest, I don’t think it is the pain and fear that I do not want to address as much as it is the shame. I still want to rewrite my past and change the way I coped. I still feel the urge to laugh these memories off despite how much they have shaped me.

I would rather share how my family banded together to get through those difficult years. I would rather share how my dad would come up with games to play in the car on the way to the hospital so the drive would be less difficult or so we could temporarily forget that this was “our normal”. Those are happier memories. Those are memories I’m okay looking back on.

But the other memories exist too. And they are part of me.

Cue ‘Holocene’ by Bon Iver