Hm, I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned this here before but I have a very particular recurring dream which has to do with the past. In this dream, I am at some point in my life - it isn't really ever the same point - it'll be the summer before my eighth grade year, or the middle of my ninth-grade year, or the first few weeks of college, or right before my college girlfriend betrayed me & broke my heart - it's never a time or place that I have deliberately chosen or was thinking about recently - but in these dreams, I'm not reliving a memory. No, I am back there physically as well as mentally, except I remember everything that comes after, to the point of time at which I am having the dream.
Not only am I completely aware of the situation - I understand immediately what's going on - I also know that I am being given a second chance. A do-over. I know everything that's going to go wrong, & now, I can sidestep it. & though the dreams don't last all that long, it's what I immediately set out to do. I begin the process of re-organizing my life to avoid things that I know will sooner or later fuck me up, & I do so immediately.
One reason I think I do this, in the dreams, is that I am not entirely sure that my brain will retain the memories of the life that's already happen, which I am changing. In at least two of the dreams that I can remember, I find a notebook & start writing down an outline of my life which I hope will help me retain the memories, although, you know, if I didn't remember what something like "1998 - Susan" meant, it might not help me when it's 1998 & I meet Susan & I don't recall what I did to screw everything up.
The reason I mention this is because I do dwell on the past a lot, & often wish I could have a chance to go back & make some changes to get through difficult moments I barely survived (or really, really hated living through). But there's a reason to think a second go at things wouldn't really help, & that reason is: I continue to do stupid things even though I should "know better." This, certainly, is the human condition. To be entirely aware one is making the same mistake or mistakes one made earlier, & to be completely helpless to stop oneself from doing so.
You may ask, do I continue to have the dreams? I do, & sometimes they're frightening in their attention to detail. I'm sure I have them & often don't remember them, but when I do remember them, I am struck by the weird moments it picks for me to "re-start." Sometimes it's pretty recent - I had a dream in the last year that began the first time I stepped into WRFL, in the summer of 2010 - & sometimes they're very far away. When I was in first grade, one day, when it was probably ten am, & we were sent out to recess, my exhausted, unhappy brain thought it was the end of the day, & I ran all the home, surprising my mother, who was watching daytime TV & ironing clothes. She had to walk me back to school, embarrassed for me (I was embarrassed, too). In the dream, I was standing on the edge of the school, about to cross Saturn Road, ready to run home, when I realized where & when my consciousness had placed me. Instead of running home, in the dream, I crept back to the playground of Caldwell Elementary & blended in.
The mind holds so many memories that it can access at the strangest times!
This, then, is my way of describing to you my adversarial relationship with the past - my past, specifically. The thing is, it's pretty obvious which side is winning.
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