Personal History

The tragedy in my life has been fairly minimal. It wasn't the obvious things like the abusive marriage or my grandparents (who raised me) dying. Those events were hard, but time has a way of healing the pain of loss. The loss that is more evident over time has been the loss of personal history that the sad events in my life have eliminated. I don't know if this is how it works for everyone, but my personal history and things that happened in my past made me who I am so the loss of the people that were there has been difficult. I can't call up my grandmother and ask her about "that time when." Because of the abusive past I would never call up my ex-husband and chat about old times when things were much different between us. It's just gone, and the quietness of not having someone to share it with makes it feel all the more distant and a bit unreal.

My 20th year high school reunion is next weekend. Just one week away and as the event approaches I find myself getting more and more excited. I will again be in touch with people that I spent a good part of my childhood with and reliving memories that we shared. A history that we shared. It has seemed so far away and almost even like it belonged to someone else. After looking through my year books, reading the things people wrote, and thinking about those times it all seems closer. This simple bit of review has taken a chunk of my past that was tucked away and somewhat unavailable and brought it out into the open. It's somewhat hard to articulate how it feels and saying it sounds strange, but I am happy to discover that I do have a personal history that hasn't been alienated from me by loss. I do have a history. It's real, and it's longer than the last crazy decade of ups and downs. It's solid and good.

Personal history is such a given that we often forget how important it is to our foundation and to connecting us into what created who we are today. It can be good or it can be bad, but it should always be there to be accessed for guidance. I'm glad I decided to go to the reunion. There is a strange comfort that there are others out there that I have a shared history with still.