Past Imperfect

We all carry the weight of our past. Some of that weight can be grounding, giving us something to stand on as we learn to speak our truth. But if we do not attend to the messy portions that an imperfect past leaves behind they will weigh us down with their little sabotaging whisperings and their sticky, resentful fingers poking distortions into our perceptions of reality. All of this is bad enough but what really trips us up is how we keep seeing the worst parts of our past out of the corner of our eyes, how they just won’t leave. This is a small steady oppressive weight that no think-positive-thoughts diet can rid us of. We have to clean up our old messes if we want to grow strong enough to glance back at our lurking past and tell it to go back where it belongs. We can work our way up to doing this. We can practice with smaller things. Perhaps we’ll start to notice how amazing we feel when we’ve gotten rid of the congealed fat in our pans and the viscous food residue on our dirty plates. We’ll work up to noticing when others try to foist the weight of their own imperfect pasts upon us. Everyone’s past is imperfect no matter how they may try to canonize certain aspects of how-things-used-to-be. But it’s not a tragedy we need to drag behind us as we walk through life, even if it’s trauma laden and ugly. We can learn how to declutter, how to attend to what weighs us down. We can start with the dishes.

Cinse Bonino
2024