Looking backward...but only to move forward

[sage]

Pam -- Thank you so much for your reply! I'm a jumble of thoughts so here goes...

first off, I realized just how strange the cainercast was...here was the LAST PARAGRAPH that I posted yesterday (it was a quote from an OLD thread):

I hadn't really expected to be feeling so sad right now...I guess that's what a trip down memory lane will do for you. So...not only is an attitude adjustment in order...but it's probably even MORE warranted given the timing.

and then, of course, you saw the cainercast:

Memory Lane is getting far too congested these days.

What the heck sort of cosmic whack is that????

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Now, onto your note...

When you talk about me possibly being mired in the past, are you talking about the old thread review? or are you talking about my inability to let go and move on?

'cause I think you're onto something with this:

Does this mean it is time for you to start totally focusing on all the wonders currently going on in your life and stop hanging onto the pain and the past?

I have been hanging on. I've been hanging onto a jillion memories and reasons and musings and blah blah blah.

But, honestly, I may JUST BE KIDDING MYSELF but I don't actually agree so much with this:

But what I have read you have seemed out of sorts while reading the past. I find when I do look back that I can do a little of it without it sucking me into some of those feelings but a lot of it will leave some residual feelings when I come out of it.

(I am truly open to the idea that I am kidding myself, however!). In some ways, my reviewing my old threads has been really lovely. I have loved revisiting with "old friends" and seeing when people showed up in my life for the first time; I have loved rereading the wisdom that they shared with me and reading the wisdom that I came up with on my own. I have been amazed and delighted and suprised at how amazingly far we have come. And in some ways that's been really wonderful.

OK...stream of consciousness shift hear...as I was writing that all I realized that I HAVE been fooling myself some...that while I've been wandering around enjoying the positives, I've also been reliving some of the real negatives of the sitch, too, and that's been hard!

In some ways I've really been feeling the stress of being on the BB of late. I've been getting so bummed when I read stuff in Newcomers in particular -- and then I look at my sitch and think "how wonderous" and then this nagging voice in the back of my head screams "don't get too comfortable. You're one bomb away from being back there".

Nothing's certain. Things can change in an instant. Even the "commitment" of M (or the re-commitment post-bomb) seems somehow fleeting. How to get comfortable with that? And what does it look like to really be comfortable with the fact that nothing is certain?

In some ways, I feel like my revisiting my threads is a swan song...I don't know...I'm not saying I want to leave the BB because I don't...but I feel like my focus needs to shift...to doing more about my life, my goals -- maybe helping more and musing on me less? But, a problem that I have is that if I get too far away from journalling, noting the positives, etc. I seem to get somewhat stuck again.

I'm just scared, Pam. Scared that if I let go of worrying and working and fixing and if I really turn my face toward the future that I'm going to get the rug pulled out from under me. what if I do throw caution to the wind and embrace this life and it just goes away? I know it may be making people mad to read this...what the hell else do I WANT above what I have been granted? I ask myself that every day and I read the stories of people who are making it happen every day with much less + feedback than I have and I'm amazed. I pulled myself though that pain 2+ years ago, Pam, and I'm just not sure I could do it again.

Please don't be upset with me, I just a lot of times get the feeling that you are still thinking in fix it mode, I do that a lot. But the past can't really be fixed in the present or the future, just learned from and adjustments made so as not to repeat the past.

I'm not upset with you at all. You've completely captured the essence of what I've been feeling.

Sage