The places I've been

And, maybe, the places I'll go

Today’s accompanying tune: “i am not who i was” by Chance Peña

Isn’t it strange to think of where you’ve been?

The footsteps of life, winding along trails, paths, sidewalks, bus lanes, train stations, plane aisles, hallways of old homes, playgrounds of our childhood. The days that didn’t seem important, the low grumblings of everyday life, stitched together merely by our presence.

How strange it is, to think of where you’ve been.

The different iterations of yourself, cast in amber, known only to those who knew you once but never again. The family members still in awe of the growth spurt you achieved in the last several decades. The classmates who witnessed your trying on of different hobbies, humors, personas. Trying to find which iteration felt best, easiest, least itchy. The coworkers at the dead end job with whom you passed hour upon hour, dreaming of lives where your finances were different, your situation easier, you yet another iteration in another universe where you never crossed paths at all. The teachers, professors, mentors, all of whom loom large in your narratives while you only register in theirs. All of them, connected, unknowingly, by our presence, by the person we were then, unaware of the person we are now.

There is a strangeness in thinking of where you’ve been.

The lives you never lived, the paths you never took, the jobs you passed up and the people you passed by and the places you never visited. All full of promise, of want, of something bigger and better than what you have now. But, really, it all led you here, each place you did visit, each person you met, every job and path you took. As meandering as it has been, as meandering as it will always be. The promise still lies ahead, waiting, on a path you have yet to take, one you don’t even know is there, just beyond the bend. The promise of the what if, the promise of this alternate universe version of you, cloaked only in the glow of impossibility. That they will never be, never truly, never enough to know. Even with every version of you that has been, there are thousands that haven’t. Stitched together only by the actions you did take, the thoughts you did have, the life you have lived.

What a strange thought to have, to think of everywhere you’ve been.

Why bother ruminating on such a thing? The past is the past, nothing can be altered. We can only control the future. We can only control the present. To be present is to be enlightened. To be future-looking is to be wise. Prepare, and ponder. Consider the places you’ll go, maybe, someday. Go forward, move on, don’t look in the rearview. What a disservice that is, this mentality, this disdain for where you’ve been. The challenges mundane and monumental you’ve overcome, washed into the water you’re prepared to throw out in service of a bright and shiny future. Unaware that the past is the fabric from which you are weaving, the dyes you seek, the endless project of life stitched together by those very moments — it is never concerned with its unwoven future, its fraying strands waiting to become part of something bigger, something better, than they could ever be on their own. Together only because of you, the weave as unique as your presence has shaped the earth on which you live.

How lovely it is, to think of where you’ve been.

Every iteration, every phase, every version of you that has softened you, magnified you, challenged you, become you. The bits and pieces you’ve taken, and the ones you’ve let fall to the side, never forgotten but their services to you complete. The places you’ve been, the sunrises you’ve seen, the air you’ve shared. The mundane, the monstrous, the marvelous. All working together to be here, now. That you can look back, see the winding journey it has been, and appreciate its detours, its contours, its wrong turns and double backs. You walked some, you ambled, you stopped to catch your breath. You ran, sprinted, clung to the mere feet in front of you to just keep going. You have been to wondrous places and places you refuse to revisit. Places you dream about, longing to return though you know they are forever behind you. Places that lurk in the shadows, threatening to drag you back into their depths. Places of love, awe, pain, grief, healing, contentment. All of them, residing in you.

How lucky are we, to value where we have been?

To know that history may not repeat, but it surely rhymes. To know where those dark places reside, who harbors them, how their shapes shift. To confront them, banish them, see them for what they are. To know that, no, we will not go back to those places. We will not revisit them. Will not entertain their promises, their whispers, their lies. To know where we have been is to know where we want to go, know what kind of future we want, know how to take the pieces of ourselves we love and cherish and build a life around them. A life along a winding road, a meandering river, a thoughtful path. The footsteps along the hallway, through the playground, in the classroom, down the sidewalk back home, showing us where we’ve come from, where we’ve been. The woven fabric, a brilliant masterpiece all your own, unable to be undone by those harboring malcontent, so tightly entwined it has become, so closely held.

To move forward, we must know from where we came. To continue putting one foot in front of the other, knowing where the last has laid. To weave the fabric together, one hand over the other, holding onto the loom and the strands at either end. To know yourself, in all your visions, guided by the world in which you inhabit.

How strange, how lovely, how lucky are we to be able to make that choice?

Here’s to the past that made us, the places we’ve been, and the places we will, maybe, someday, go.

- Megan