Erasing Your Past

If you could erase your past, would you?
Would that serve you? or ..
would it be a gross disservice?

Would you just extract the “bad” things that happened?
What would be the statute of limitations on how awful it felt?
Because, if you think about it, the things that mortified you as a kid,
can still trigger that sinking feeling in your stomach.
Would you erase those too?

How big would the pain have to be for you to erase the experience?
What about the time when you were 13 and made a fool of yourself,
or so you thought, at that school pool party?
Or when you didn’t make cheer leading in high school?
Would that qualify?

What about how you felt when your parents or a teacher said
something sharp and cruel?
Or that pang of injustice when you were treated unfairly?
What about all the bad relationship break-ups?
You felt just about as low as a person can go,
and the one when you were 18 hurt as much as the one a week ago Friday!
Would you erase all of them? Some of them?

You would have to wipe from your memory the entire relationship,
in order to side step the pain…would you?

Do you see what we’re getting at?
Your past is part of what made you, YOU.
As much as some things have hurt you,
you HAVE learned and grown from them.
Erasing them from your experience altogether
would leave you hollow, because they happened for a reason.

Just think about that today.
What would you erase from your past,
that you think , if it were gone completely,
would make you better?