I sat and sorted through boxes of old photos today. It wasn’t a fun trip down memory lane like most would imagine and all I felt was sadness mixed with detachment. Sad about faking happiness, sad about mentally beating myself up for years over people who would never like, love or accept me. It IS okay to feel sad but now I’ve also decided to no longer dwell on it anymore. I’m done.

I made the choices that led up to those photos being taken and stayed much longer than I should have. Responsibility owned and acknowledged with the pictures documenting decisions I made now stacked neatly in small boxes. My past, held in scattered formation in a cardboard container, waiting for more decisions to be made. Do I keep them, pass them along to my daughter or dispose of them by fire?

I suppose no one ever gets out of this world without some pain and at least one tiny box of regrets and here I was sitting with a pile of photographic pain, carefully deciding how to process it. Those who participated in my past are now either dead or they have moved on, as have I. There will be no opportunity to “talk it out” with not so dearly departed so they will simply be catalogued in the back of my mind as forever unresolved.

I dare not pick open old wounds as I was once so eager to do because all I will be left with is darkness and depression. I’m done with that manner of coping. It takes up too much time and ultimately only circles back to anger which I have no energy for any longer. What is done is done and onward we go. Oh, it’s so hard to resist slashing open those scars as a familiar darkness beckons me to forgo healing and slide right back into rage. I won’t go there. I can’t.

Set the past free and you will set yourself free. Such a quaint saying isn’t it? By releasing myself from mistakes, slights and the pain heaped upon me by others I keep them from winning. They will not win as long as I am still alive. That’s my plan anyway because I was never their problem and they certainly are no longer mine. I will be free soon.

My heart, mind and soul belong to me and me alone so I let the past fall and drift away with the only evidence of its existence found now in old pictures, journals and here. I can trap it all here in a snapshot made entirely of words. Given freely to others as a gift to myself.

The power the past once exerted over me was heavy and so overwhelming it felt like being held down, held back and held hostage over the most insignificant things. Words I spoke, facial expressions I did or did not make, actions I should or should not have taken, all tallied up as evidence against me.

I own all of those memories now and can do what I want with them. They are mine and I can release them back into the very darkness that silently choked me into submission so many years ago.

Silent no more but also, hurt no more. I don’t feel those feelings as intensely and am no longer invested in revenge or even the desire to simply have my say. The energy I once spent stewing and lamenting has been reinvested back into my personal happiness and it feels good! I feel good, finally.

When I sift through these pictures of you, me, them and us all together I no longer feel anything but a weight being lifted because I was never the person any of you said I was. The only thing I was, was sad, so painfully sad and lonely because I knew I didn’t belong and you all definitely made sure I was aware of that. Believe me, I tried to fit in for a while, I really did, but all of that forced trying hurt too much, so I stopped. I got closer to freedom.

Anger replaced joy much too often back then and eventually, I did realize the futility of it all and stopped. It just wasn’t meant to be, that’s okay, I understand and even apologize for making situations harder at times because I refused to admit defeat. Even, in all of that, the only true regret I have is that I did not walk away sooner because with each delay of the inevitable I left a piece of myself behind.

So now, I continue rebuilding and look back fondly on my daughter growing up and my eventual finding of strength to leave bad situations. Some of the people involved in my past life grew and evolved and those I wished would have, clung to deep inner turmoil until their last breath instead. I am sad for them and sorry about the opportunities to truly connect that they lost but, it was their choice and not caused by any of my actions. Being free was not their wish.

That will not be the path I take because forgiveness of self is the gift I received from this whole experience. I can look at these pictures now and put them into perspective because I’m no longer held back by grief over what I lost, what I never had or by the anger of what was perpetrated upon me.

I am in charge now and these pictures are simply dots marked on my timeline, placeholders for things that happened in the past which no longer have any power over me.

I am free.

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