There were two cardboard boxes in my closet, full of the history of me, in journal form. Forty years of journals. Written on the boxes instructions that upon my death they go to a friend and be destroyed. And so they have sat through the years, in the floor of my closet, peering up at me balefully, like a toad, unfinished business. A great holding on to the past, in case it is needed to explain me some day. But explain me to whom? Do I think scholars will one day be doing dissertations on what I was thinking about on a Tuesday in May, 1995?

And so one day last week I realized it was time. I opened the first box and began to shred them, pieces of me, pieces of the past. They came to hand in no particular order, despairing Mother of teenagers in one, young college student in another, newlywed, new Mother, teenager, the room becoming crowded with former selves.

A strange thing, reading the past, knowing how it all came out. Knowing that the heartbroken twenty something was within months going to meet the love of her life, the one she’s been married to for 30 odd years. That the Nursing Student agonizing over taking her Boards was going to pass them and have a long, wonderful career in nursing. That the young woman desperate to have a baby would have a house full of children and the joy they bring, and the empty nest that follows and the joy that brings. That the people she was worried about would be alright, or sometimes they wouldn’t, but that it’s all over now.

And so I threw the past away, one chapter at a time, turning my back firmly as pieces of my younger selves fluttered into the trash. And I felt lighter every moment. The past is done and nothing can change it. No need to hang onto it and figure it out, or wait for justice, or forgiveness. Accept that I did the best I could with what I knew at the time…and so did everyone else. And mostly, it came out okay, and when it didn’t, I tried to learn from it.

So I move on and strive to live this day and be here now, where my feet are. And not to squander any more time being mad, or worried, or hard on myself or hard on others. We are all doing the best we can, and hopefully, when we know better, we do better.

I saved a few pages, pages my children might want to have, about how they were when they were little, how funny they were, how loved they were, and also this. A note I wrote to myself in the midst of late teens drama, that seemed earth shaking at the time, a time when very little earth shaking had actually yet occurred.

“Dear Mary,

You are alright. All this is going to be okay. Just put one foot in front of the other and have faith. Everything happens for a reason and one day you’ll understand. Keep on keeping on and this too shall pass. Let God run your life.

Love,

Mary

I was right about that.