Something to think about -

[kyburg]

It's been brought to my attention by more than one person that I tend to wear my past on my sleeve.

Uh. Hmm.

If people knew how much I consciously don't talk about the years between 1984 and 1998? The first thing that comes to mind about the above complaint is "pardon me for it being such an inconvenience."

That's snippy. But holy chrome.

One could say I've lived a charmed life, sure - just the wrong kind of charm.

More than one or two of the grand events have had a lot to do with the delays on a number of milestones. No retirement plan, outside of buying a gun and plugging myself if I got a really REALLY bad reason to stop working suddenly. No children. No grand career writing stuff.

Hell if I'm going to just throw my hands up and say that's it - I just did other things. Things I thought were important enough to postpone other things. Things nobody else could - or would - do.

I mention it. Hell, you ask my name and you have to get a bit of history to understand it.

If you know me, you have to know that much history - sorry, but that was my twenties and thirties. Twenty years and change. Even if they were uneventful years, they'd still be history - wouldn't they?

Do I expect anything for it? It's not worth anything to anyone but me.

I wasn't looking to be famous, or successful.

Ghad. Either a saint or a loser. Why can't it just be what it was?

I wasn't lucky. Period.

And even THAT isn't okay?!

Too damn honest again. Crap.

Comments

[lolleeroberts.livejournal.com]

You can talk to me about it anytime. I hear you. I started over again at 48. It's amazing what tends to get discarded when you're trying to keep someone you love from dying in despair and pain in a gutter.

I did the best I could and it wasn't enough. It will never have been enough. People who never walked down that stretch of dark road don't want to hear about it. It's like whistling past the graveyard. That sort of pain will never touch them so why don't we just shut up? Gah.

Darling, I am happier than I can say that you are wrestling some love and joy out of life now. But anytime you want to talk history with me? The inbox is open.

*hug*

(mutters) some people's children....

[caitlin.livejournal.com]

It has been my opinion that EVERYONE wears their pasts on their sleeves. It is what is DONE in regards to those pasts that either makes one stronger, or totally screws them up.

You? Are a case of the former. I know at least one person (or, at least, I thought I did) who is more the latter.

Yeah, there's plenty of second guessing... I do it all the time. But there is a choice... either let those choices stagnate any further growth due to regrets, or keep plugging away and live life on the new path carved out.

Or maybe I'm just talking too much and should shut up and go to bed.

I don't know.

C.

[dudemungus.livejournal.com]

I found it to be certain types--some folks had lives harder by far than mine, who just shrug about it when you ask, and some who are almost crippled by a past full of not much but (comparative) luxury.

Some of us are just wired to carry scars and some aren't. It doesn't make either right or wrong, it just is.

And yeah, some of us just have rotten luck. I knwo lots of folks starting over again at later ages. My mom is back in school, and even if she works well past retirement age, she may only get a decade out of her new career. BUt I asked her when she was hesitant--if you were to kick over tomorrow, what would you rather be doing? On the road to your dreams coming true. or trudging along toward nothing?

Keep fighting.

[murphymom.livejournal.com]

You'll get no such grief from me...I'm starting all over again AGAIN at 57- four years into a new career and thinking of making a lateral shift into a related one, otherwise my fate is to fall over dead in a classroom somewhere, because I'll most likely never be able to retire - looking for love again, hoping this time it won't be in all the wrong places - and that's just about the last 20 years. Start toting up my entire life, and it's a damned soap opera. But it's my life, and I have managed to live it mostly on my terms, and if people don't want to hear about it, they shouldn't ask. Should I feel sorry about it? Why? No such thing as too honest, not in my book.

[redqueenofevil.livejournal.com]

I would not accuse you of wearing your past on your sleeve. As a matter of fact, you seem to be one of the more forward looking people I know. Your posts have been inspirational to me.

You're definitely not a loser.

[anahata56.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with Lollee--a lot of people just can't take it, for whatever reason. A lot of people look at the nitties and the gritties and just run screaming in the opposite direction.

And then take that aspect of themselves, and the shame they feel at being too "weak" to cope with it, and blame it on you.

And you know, I get it when you say that it just is what it is, and was what it was. I know that, at this point, in my own mind and in my own heart, it isn't moaning anymore--for the most part, I've wrapped my head around the idea that things unfolded as they did and that's what's supposed to have happened, to turn me into me. So no, it isn't a heart-rending confessional at this point. At least, it isn't supposed to be.

But things happened--LOTS of things happened. And I talk about it.

So sue me.

Are we supposed to talk like all of life has been a skip down the flowery path? What a load that would be...

What a lie that would be.

And you know what's REALLY funny?

I'll bet that the same people who make such remarks really see the extraordinary person that you are and don't make the connection that your past is part of how you got that way.

[miwasatoshi.livejournal.com]

It's the old adage about how no one knows where you've really been but you. (Except that that's not always true, depending on who you trust, how much you've entrusted to them, and that, too is perfectly your business.)

The problem with being a bard is that you're entrusted with ten times as many stories as you are actually allowed to tell. Lord knows how many of other people's secrets I choose to keep on top of my own. Fortunate for me, then, that my life has been comparatively easy and simple, but I know of many who have had to start over, at 23, at 35, at 47, at 60. Someday, I may be able to tell those too, albeit in fictionalized form that glosses over the details of who, precisely, they are (because that's the only way I could ever get away with it).

We talk a lot, yes, but make no mistake: we are listening and we will learn because we'll get there too.

There's no point in judging one's past -- the idea is to learn from it, appreciate it as much as possible, regret it as little as you can for your own sake and sanity. Wear it on your sleeve or hide it as you see fit. It is part of you, too, then, now, and forever. It doesn't mean you'll act the same way you did in 1983. But that's not something that can (or should) be forgotten lightly.

That goes double for folks whose pasts were imposed on them by others.

I hope you can make any sense of these 4:30am ramblings ... I've uncharacteristically woken up philosophical in the early morning. :)

[moropus.livejournal.com]

People who don't know you well don't deserve to know a painful history and people who respect you know better than to pick at the sores. Screw them.

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

There's a line in the beginning of Dante's Inferno about 'midway in my life, I got lost in a dark wood' and you can take that whichever way you want...I had a similar reset in 1991, a really hard one. Turned out after some review from the future that the path I had taken from 1983-1990 was a Big Mistake, and that the reset was inevitable, considering the circumstances.

At the time of the reset I was angry at the circumstances; now, I'm more angry at myself that I got diverted like that. Shoulda had more sense, etc. When you get into a mess like that, who do you blame - yourself for being dumb enough to buy the Brooklyn Bridge, or the people who sold it to you? Sure, they were heartless thugs, but you're the dummy who fell for the sales pitch.

Now, I look back at the situation, and see that what I was supposed to do was to end up with Da Kid, and gloriosky me, I have to figure out what to do with her. When I review non-Kid situations, they all pall, and I feel honored to have Da Kid dropped on me as a Big Present To Take Care Of, but jeeze, that's a big responsibility to live up to.

Nothing wrong about being honest with yourself. Most of the problems I've seen with myself or others have been when they divert into fantasyland and don't pay any attention to realities.

I'm going to be 50 next month, and it goads me into getting off my fat tushie and taking charge and making some of the better things come true for myself. They require some application of work and effort to get to, but I know that I'll be a LOT happier with these things in gear.

I don't do new year's resolutions as such; my feeling always has been that you need to apply yourself to A Change irregardless of time phase, and not trumpet it to the skies. Well, except to say to a SO that 'this is what I seriously want to do, and this is the path that I'd like to take to it, and I'd like your feedback on it to look for glitches, and to ask for your support to get there. It's not *your* project, so I'm not asking you to kill yourself for it, but I'll appreciate your help as needed.'

Part of my reluctance to trumpet such things is that it's showoffy, immodest. Do or not do, there is no empty 'try' that becomes a joke.

[dandelion-diva.livejournal.com]

Oh, feh on them. This is *your* space. Talk about what you need/want to, and don't let anyone tell you any differently. Even me. *smile*

[riverheart.livejournal.com]

You'll get no static from this quarter, as I am having to start all over again, again. I've had to do it before. I have to do it now. You know my history, or a great deal of it, from reading my locked LJ posts.

So no static here.

[divalea.livejournal.com]

We''ll wear our pasts together, over in this corner with the chocolate and sushi and green tea.

So theres.