A Thought Experiment
I woke up at 3 again this morning. I've been doing that lately. Then I'll lay away until about 5 and finally fall back to sleep.
I think while I'm half-awake, though. Most of it doesn't make any sense, but every once in a while, something interesting sneaks through, and I'll send myself an email so I don't forget.
What I thought about last night was the ratio of how much you think about the future versus thinking about the past. And how much you want to live in the future versus living in the past.
When you're young, it's not a thing, because the answer is almost always heavily focused on the future. And you're happy, because the future seems unlimited.
You get older. For many of us, the future seems dull in comparison to what we might have had, particularly in relationships. If you're in a difficult marriage, like Gloria and I were, it makes you look back and wonder.
With Eli, though, I always looked forward to the future (still do), because wondrous things seem to happen on a daily basis.
This week, though, I've been thinking more about the past, and my life before the accident, and if I'm honest, part of me wants to be back there, when I was still living in my little apartment and life was much lighter. Now there are times when it feels very, very heavy.
I also know that it's my job to make my own life lighter. No one is going to do it for me.
I'm guessing that people who always want to go into the future are the happiest, and people who always think about the past are the least happy.
The difference in me now, after therapy, is that I'm conscious of these things. Before, I would have had no idea what was roiling around inside. Understanding is its own way of looking forward.
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