That’s My Disappearing Life

Read Time: 8 minutes

History vs. the Past

Recorded history. It’s a record of the past. Is it, though? I wonder. Is what we call our pasts the same thing as history? Obviously, history happened before us and is being recorded in our lifetime. But, our pasts, even though they also happened “before” just like history, don’t seem to be so obviously behind us. 

History captures the big stuff. It tells stories of people whose lives were notoriously brilliant and terrible. These moments and people belong there in this record. Do our pasts belong there, too? I really don’t think so.

The history we are taught in school is told with very little emotion and it’s always in the third person. It’s completely different from the past. The past is personal. It’s driven by emotion. It doesn’t even try to be objective, and it’s told by me. Most of the time, it’s only in my head.

There is one other big difference, too, at least for me. I believe history should be preserved. My past, though, needs to be forgotten. One holds lessons and the other is where I dwell. Like history, the past is a place that cannot be revisited or revised but it’s where I try to do both. That’s why I need to forget it.

Stephen King calls history scar tissue. This is from the perspective of a serial killer, but I like the description anyway. It’s a simple way to describe it. History is the story that remains after the brilliant and terrible events have happened. A tough cover over the wounds. That’s what history can be for all of us. The stories with the lessons that are left after the trauma. It can and does include the trauma, but for the context of its awfulness only. History does not hold trauma and bring it forward. It may describe it, but it doesn’t keep it alive. Not like our pasts can. I see the difference now. It changes everything.

The Past and Harry Potter

I grew up in the world of Harry Potter. There is so much real life in this magical made up place. I learned something valuable from growing up in that world. Harry’s world gave me a perspective on life that has changed how I see mine. It’s the idea of a disappearing past. Here’s how Harry taught me what the past should be.

Besides reading the book, I think I’ve watched the movie Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets the most. I love learning the backstories. In Chamber, the reader and audience get to learn more about Voldemort. We get to find out some of what happened to him. I call it his past because it’s full of emotion, pain, and trauma. It’s definitely not told in its actual order of events.

Voldemort may see it as his history, but I don’t think the telling of history is intended to carry pain forward. It’s obvious that Voldemort is definitely carrying all kinds of pain out of his past. All his anger and resentment is carried into Harry’s 12 year old life. An adult’s evil that invades the life of a child. I get that Voldemort’s past gives us these wonderfully terrible stories, but should our pasts have that power?

I guess it’s easy to see Voldemort as just pure evil. Is he, though? Maybe he’s stuck in a painful past that tells him he has no choice but to seek revenge for all of the assumed injustices he has faced. I’m not sure, but I know no one should live like Voldemort. Someone who is always in pain and inflicting pain on others. He’s trying to rule a world he feels entitled to dominate because his feelings were hurt. I never really saw villains this way until I started shifting my perspective in my twenties. But, now, it seems like Voldemort is more like some of us than we care to admit. 

Voldemort is an extreme example. But, his past brings up a question. Why do we put so much emphasis on the past? It’s kept alive in ways that distort the present and control how reality is interpreted. Why is the past given so much power to drive the lives we live?

Like Voldemort, (a necessary comparison 😊) I used to let my past define me. I labeled myself as not powerful enough, rejected, ignored, or unlucky. I lived thinking that today is an oddly comfortable repeat performance of yesterday. Without time travel, yesterday literally cannot be repeated. I was, though, letting it control so much of my life. I neglected the life I have control over right now. But, maybe Harry had taught me something. What if I stopped letting the past have any power over me? What would change? Could I simply live life, learn from it, then let it fade into the pages of my history?

In Chamber, there is a symbol that helps me understand the power of living life in the present. It’s Tom Riddle’s diary. The diary is a horcrux Voldemort used to literally hold a piece of his life. His past self. Ironically, though, the diary’s words disappear.  A past captured only in disappearing ink. The diary holds information about the past, but words only show up in a magical ink that fades after Harry reads them.  

Disappearing

I like the idea of disappearing ink. Maybe for some people, disappearing ink would be kind of frustrating. But to me, disappearing ink sounds like freedom. I see the past like blank pages. Pages that actually hold stories, but with words that appear only when I ask for them. I’m free from what has already happened. I don’t have to be caught up in a fated existence defined and read back to me by some version of my past self.

My past no longer defines me. I’m leaning into the present. I want to live my life facing fears from my past so I can feel the emotions that come with experiences without getting stuck. Then, those words and images fade as I move through my life. As just an imprint in disappearing ink, the past can have the meaning and the power that I give it. I choose to give it very little. Recollection can be useful now, but it’s a tool. It’s not a horcrux.

What I want exists because of how I see life in the present. The past has already done its job. Why would I need it to justify who I am or what I want? I’m allowed to be authentically me and want certain things for my life regardless of what has already happened. If I have to use the past to validate what I want today, I might not be ready for it yet. 

Until I took away its power, it was so easy to blame the past for what I feared was happening or would happen to me. Isn’t it funny how I can blame the past to justify the present because I can’t change it (Oh,well, that’s just how it is), but I can also use it to justify fears and behaviors to avoid accountability for my choices? Not anymore. That’s a paradox I don’t need to live in.

Looking Back and Running Away

As my perception of life shifted, time slowed down. I stopped looking backward while also trying to run away. I was racing to get back to something. The last time I felt good about myself. The last time I felt smart enough. I was trying to piece together the formula I thought the past held. Trying to hold on to the freedom of childhood but wanting so badly to grow up fast. Into what, I wasn’t sure. Not knowing wasn’t okay before, but it’s so good now. I found time here and now, not there and then.

Always anxious, never enough, waiting for something or someone to save me. But, it just doesn’t make sense to live that way. Now that I’m facing those fears, I keep those situations I thought defined me where they came from –  in the past. It’s a waste of time to look back for all the answers. I know now that I won’t find them.

Is the present escaping you while you try to make sense of your past? Do you think it’s the only way to figure out your future? Do you ever spend today holding your life hostage trying to recreate past experiences? Are you running from situations that made you feel bad or scared? That’s what I was doing, and it sucked. I thought life had to be this way. So glad I was wrong.

I Don’t Need a Horcrux

Once Harry figured out the horcruxes, he destroyed them and defeated Voldemort. Unlike Voldemort, my life isn’t actually broken into pieces. I used to be stuck in a horcrux where I believed I never made the right choices and everyone else’s amazing life was the evidence. I tried out different pieces of a life and sometimes gave pieces away. But this was wrong. When I lived my life in pieces, I lost the whole of it. I let myself get caught in the horcrux. 

The amazing and freeing truth is that I can drive change within myself regardless of the past. I don’t have to be stuck looking for why I’m not enough so I can become enough. I’m enough right now. I always was. If I believe what happens to me is just the direct result of my past, I’ll never live a life made up of what I want it to be. Now, when I do think of the past, it feels different. It fades when it means so little. I can finally see life’s collateral beauty.

If it all sounds uncomfortable, it is. It’s easy to live in the weight of the past. My past was powerful. I brought it into the present complete with all the ghost-like physical sensations. I need the past to lose its energy and make room for the present. I have the power to channel that energy into what I want to make of my life. My life right now needs to exist separately from what I cannot change. The present is so much more important. My life today deserves its own shot at happiness.

My twenty-something vibe and shift are being recorded in disappearing ink. I know that I won’t read this post the same way a year from now. That is such a wonderful thing. I’ll use my 20’s as a classroom as I learn how to write my imprint in that disappearing ink. I’ll never be afraid again for it to be written and then fade away.

Watch me as I disappear…

Find “Terribly Beautiful” on the Poems page