Past, Present, Future

I revisited my past this weekend when I attended my 30 year high school reunion.  If you read my last post, you know I was apprehensive about doing so, but it was something I felt compelled to do despite my misgivings.  The compulsion I felt was similar to when I ran for political office.  It was just something I needed to do for reasons I couldn't entirely explain even to myself.

I don't believe in examining the past unless it's simply to remind myself of a lesson already learned.  I'm not interested in dwelling on consequences of mistaken choices or actions that can't be undone.  It's pointless.  I find it's better to take the emotion out of the equation, learn the lesson, and then try to apply it going forward.  I try not to think about the future too much either.  If you let your thoughts get too far ahead of yourself, you'll develop an unhealthy habit of worry.

The solution is to live in the present.  Easier said than done, but very rewarding if you can pull it off with any consistency.  I entered the reunion hall unsure of what to expect but was determined to embrace the experience for better or worse.  No matter what, I wasn't going back to the past or who I was in high school.  I was going to be fully engaged in the present and be who I had become.  I gave zero thought to the future and what I might feel like if it went poorly.  In I went, still not knowing why I needed to be there.

When it was all over, I still wasn't entirely sure what I had accomplished but I knew I had had fun and enjoyed myself from beginning to end.  I never once went back to high school that night.  Whatever irrational remnant of high school memory that had subconsciously haunted me, had been erased.  I resolved something I still can't even identify.  Interestingly, one of my old friends remarked to me "you are always exactly where you're supposed to be" while we discussed our own personal ups and downs.  Though I had heard the phrase many times before, it took on greater clarity in that moment because I was exactly where I was supposed to be.  I was in the present - enjoying every minute of it.  In a million years, I would never have imagined a moment like that would ever occur at a high school reunion.