It was as though I was making two sets of my whole life till then – where I decided to dump all the good stuff into a bag called “2022” and then board the very next plane bound for the said New Year. Back in the departure lounge through which I would exit the soon-to-expire 2021, were all the things that somehow “did not” make the “cut”. Keep in mind, that the cut being referred to is that bag called 2022. Things like insufferable relationships and/or friendships, pointless emotions and unnecessary stresses. Basically, anything and everything deemed dead-weight was hoped to have been left behind at the boarding gate.
Note my use of the “hope” in leaving that dead-weight behind. And simultaneously hating to be the bearer of bad news – I wish I knew why it isn’t always that easy to leave things behind.
This is something I realised late last week – you know, the complexities of seamlessly (or even otherwise, for that matter) moving on in life.
Facebook has a feature that allows you to “see your memories”. Going back seven years, I saw a conversation on my wall with a friend, who was somebody with whom I had had a nasty falling out. Harsh words were exchanged, egos were bruised, and an old friendship seemed to have been ruined. And out of the blue, this “memory” triggered so many flashbacks: some happy and others, not so much.
But what was it about this conversation made me feel this way?
Maybe it was that nobody assumes that something so minor could set off so many memories. Or it could be that neither of us had spoken in years: seven years to be precise, if counted. Reading that conversation over and over again, I wanted to come back with so many things to say – but couldn’t, for reasons I myself am unsure of. Maybe it was the distance that came in between us – a distance measured literally by only a few years apart, but light years in terms of perspective. In my haste to move on in life, I failed to ensure that I moved on “with” all the “important things” in life. As we speak, I am continuing to realise that I made some pretty amazing memories over time – stored somewhere at the back of my mind and which needed the gentlest of tugs to make their presence felt. And while I thought I had made way for the new stuff, there were a lot of good things in the dump that I had very conveniently forfeited because I did not take full inventory of everything that was “associated” with my life.
Coming back to eliminating all that emotional baggage, those broken dreams and failed relationships (of any and all sorts), I now realise that so many of us (including myself) fail to reflect on what we have learned from those experiences. And in the process, we subsequently fail to take those lessons ahead in life. And along the same lines of working on 2021’s bad habits, did any of us attempt to even consider how and why we adopted them in the first place?
But another challenge with leaving things behind is the very real tendency to unknowingly carry around that useless or harmful baggage. So, I reconnected with this same friend. And among other things, both of us apologised to each other. Trust deficits were brought up and old wounds were reopened; as we speak, the two of us are working on gradually rebuilding all of that. But we spoke. And we are slowly mending bridges – that both of us had earlier and very easily burnt. I told her that I was working on trying to be a better person – one kind act (big or small), at a time. A month or so into this project, I interestingly learned that we often shun other people without fully processing our own hurt. We walk away – without realising that we cannot and will not truly move on in life, till such time we have completely forgiven either or both, of them and ourselves. It would then make sense to ensure that we’re not unintentionally carrying along any residue of certain relationships that we choose to leave behind in the soon-to-be-old year.
Now here’s to the upcoming new year.
I would fully endorse anyone’s plans to leave behind the bad and ugly stuff in 2022, but I genuinely hope that people do not throw any babies out with the bath water. If you’re not sure, I encourage you to take a second look at what you have decided to leave behind. Are there any good pieces that can be salvaged? I would hate for anyone to wind up like me by spring, wondering what happened to certain valuable things that were swept away during your move into 2023.
“Leave it in 2021” was bold, brave and very catchy. Let’s now make an attempt at “leave it in 2022”. If you want some things to stay in 2022 and not show up on your doorstep halfway through 2023, there is a lot of thought and planning involved.
So, here’s to a huge, big congratulations to anyone who successfully left something behind in 2021; you guys made that difficult first move. Now for the hard part: making sure you’re taking all the necessary precautions to ensure that it stays there.