Traveling Back in Time

When I first moved to New York I stored a couple of large boxes filled with old journals, high school yearbooks, and photographs in the guest bedroom closet at my mom's house. Each time I come home I try to take some of it back to New York with me.

Today, while going through it to pick things to take back, I stumbled across a journal I kept from January to April 2004. This was during the time that I was reliant on a relationship that was not working at all, dealing with the dissipation of that relationship, working unhappily at an insurance agency in Memphis, and getting ready to move to New York.

Reading it was stranger than reading anything else I've come across in the dozens of notebooks filled with my writing. I forgot how much I struggled with some of the decisions I made at that time, because in retrospect they are but a blip on the screen of my life thus far. I am also stunned, though, by how realistic I was about those decisions at the same time.

I think when looking back at that time and the year preceding it, it is incredibly easy to see my mistakes and berrate myself for them. Now, though, I am feeling a bit of pride for the choices I made. Suddenly I see that I didn't just end up where I am on accident (which it often feels like) but put a lot of thought into it.

It's strange to have your view shifted by your very own words.