Putting the Past Behind

Everybody tells me to the past behind me and move on, like it’s the easiest thing in the world to do.

But why should I? Why should I forget the things that happened to me as if they were trivial, everyday things that occur on a daily basis?

The days that are past may seem beautiful but that’s because we got through them. There is so much “safeness” in the past because nothing can alter what happened there. Perhaps, that’s why we love revisiting it. But now, I have a part of my life that I don’t want to revisit even though I do, I don’t want to remember but I can’t forget.

I was bullied, man-handled, oppressed, fooled, tricked, and treated like a slave to a disembodied voice for four long years. I gave into this treatment because I believed I was pleasing God.

But I have got to get back up!

Even if you feel you have been broken beyond repair, or hurt to the point of feeling mangled, you have got to get up. There is this strange definition of a righteous man in the Bible. In Proverbs, it says a righteous man falls down seven times, gets up eight. There is glory if you get up, shame if you lie in defeat.

Tell yourself, even if you are reluctant to believe it, that you are going to get back up. And you have something to live for, even if it is something as small as writing a blog, in the hope that others like you, can heal. Nobody has to change the world. They just have to change themselves.

Whenever I think of the past, I cry. It’s a response I can’t help myself from doing. I feel deeply hurt. But I also feel repugnance, hatred, anger (especially at myself), and a longing to avenge myself. But in the realm of the supernatural, how can a mere mortal take “revenge”?

Now, that I’ve considered it deeply, to forget the past and move on is not the only course of action, it is also the best course of action. But what do you move on to?

I’ve made a list of things I want to try out so that I can utilise all my free time. I encourage you also to be proactive and productive. Take a year to do all the things that you always wanted to do. I find when you tap into the essence of what makes you happy, you can get a lot of clues into what you should be doing with your time.

Here’s my list. Make yours.

· I want to have a healthy, prosperous, lush and flush window garden. Some of the flowers I like are morning glories, roses, lilies, cassia fistula, jasmine, and pomegranate. I’m going to take gardening seriously.

· I want to write poems that are not love poems. Usually, I start off writing about something, and it somehow turns into a love poem. I want to stop believing that a man-and-a-woman love is somehow the only love we can have. What happened to things like Friendship? It’s something I once valued, then undervalued and now I think what a great thing the company of friends is.

· I want to invest in the stock markets to make money so I can take my mum out to dinner. That’s how simple my investment goal looks like! I was never into food, but I think I should be because eating is something we do three times a day. I did a lot of cooking in 2016-2020, and baking as well, so I’d like to try out what it’s like to eat.

· Somewhere down the line I’d like to teach around three to four batches of kids. Strangely I find myself becoming very successful as a teacher of mathematics, a subject I hated with considerable gusto in school. I’ll tell you a secret tip about making money. It’s not about saving. It’s about generating. Have three to four sources of income, and you’ll find that money grows faster.

· I want to write a serious blog that’s more about being life affirming and positive, than it is about talking about my problems.

So, that’s what I’ve decided. I’m going to move on even though I’ve been treated unfairly. And one day I’m going to forget.