It’s been said that you can’t go home again. Maybe that’s true. A person can’t go home again, in actuality, because everything always changes. We ourselves change when we change our surroundings. When we leave our homes, we encounter new things: a new geography, new people, new sights, new smells, new sounds; all these new things affect us, making us change our way of seeing, our way of feeling, and even our way of thinking about the world around us.
We are often told not to dwell on the past. After all, you can’t change it, can you? What’s the sense of taking that trip down memory lane, when you’re sure to come out feeling depressed and frustrated and muttering “couldah, shouldah, wouldah.” Who needs to be reminded of all of their failures, all their mistakes, all their wrong turns and bad decisions? Better to leave all that in the past, where it belongs, right?
Still, it can be a good idea to revisit the past every now and then. After all, there were good things that happened, too. Going ‘home’ again, and thinking about your past can be an excellent way to evaluate where you are in your life, and how you got there. Perhaps it can help to set a course for a new direction or a different way of thinking.
Continue reading “Revisiting the old days – or – On coming home again”