I don’t know how most people look into the past, but my gut instinct is that for a lot of folks the past is a collection of stories and events that are, for the most part, easily recalled. A story is ultimately intangible, just like the past is. Sometimes it can take you by surprise. The past is often loaded with emotions, thoughts, and desires so forgotten and buried that upon unearthing they have changed. They mean something different today than they did then, and sometime in the future, they will mean something different than they do now. There is no telling what the past will become to you until you are there.
Life is filled with keys to yesteryear, but they are easily disguised. The easiest key to the past is the persons with whom the past was experienced. Just seeing or thinking of an old friend or acquaintance can bring back memories long forgot. I think our minds work in such a way that most events are tethered to the people who were there. It’s hard to remember times when you were alone, and perhaps even more strangely, the ones I do remember being alone I remember specifically because of other people. I remember crying in my room after a bad break up in high school, I remember driving away alone from Milwaukee after dropping off one of my closest friends at his home, I remember sitting in the car not wanting to leave after dropping Deborah off at the airport only days after asking her out. I remember these times because of the people who weren’t there, not because of what was happening in that time or place.
For me a huge “key” is music. Crying in my room at the aforementioned breakup, I was listening to “High and Dry” by Radiohead, I can’t hear that song without at least somewhat feeling the emotions I felt that day, even though I am completely over that relationship, in fact it has almost been a decade. I’m extraordinarily grateful that I have shapeshifting musical tastes. When I hear a song I used to listen to often, but haven’t heard in years, like “Soul Meets Body” by Death Cab for Cutie, my thought train steps into a time machine. Sometimes for better or sometimes for worse. In a decade will I hear “On GP” by Death Grips and be transported to 2015, remembering how everything felt for me? I hope so.
Sometimes a “key” becomes degraded. From the first time I watched Wall-E until the day I got married I did not cry once, I’m not bragging or anything, it is just fact, it doesn’t mean anything about who I am or my “manliness.” I cried during the scene in which Wall-E sacrifices himself by putting his body in the machine to stop it from going down. I always thought this was an incredibly emotional scene because of how I reacted to it, but upon rewatching the film a few months ago, I found that the scene did barely anything to me emotionally. I was surprised by this, but maybe I shouldn’t have been.
I’m sure you have keys to your past, maybe they are photographs, places, or objects. While they are ordinary to everyone but you, that doesn’t mean they aren’t special. The things that tether us to the past are also the things that tether us to ourselves. When we disregard the past or try to destroy it we only end up disregarding or destroying part of ourselves. I’m not advocating for you to let your past rule your life, but rather that your past will always inform who you are, whether you want it to or not. I think acknowledging this actually gives you more control than otherwise.
chungking jungle 