It’s early. I woke up at 5:30 am – that’s what I get for having that schedule the last 5 months. Through my open bedroom window, a light morning breeze stirred the air. The birds were beginning choir practice, and I could hear a train in the distance. Normally, I can snooze right along with all the first light awakening sounds, but today, for some reason, I just couldn’t. Even as I type this my sleepy brain is struggling to wake up, but I tell you, if I went back to bed I’d just lay there and think about things-and thinking does me no good this time of day. The “I wonder whys” start. At first, they are somewhat insignificant. “I wonder why my middle son is such a slob.” “I wonder why someone would pick OUR car to steal a license tag from.” They progress in significance to, “I wonder why I can be disciplined in SOME things but not others”. Then the “you oughts” begin. “You ought to test your blood sugars more often.” “You ought to get more exercise.” “You ought to practice the piano every day.” And then there’s reminders of obligations, and of things to be done and checked off a list. And finally, if I let my brain go there, I can then progress to reminders of mistakes in the past, and moments I wish I could take back, and bad decisions, and all kinds of things it does me no good to mull over. I got up to avoid all that…now I’m writing about it. Great.
2 comments:
You're not the only one to have those thoughts. I have to be busy in order to not let those things into my head.
Why is it that we go over events that happened 30 years ago, and still feel guilty/angry/saddened/embarrassed by whatever it was we were a part of back then? Is it some kind of self-abuse?
I dunno, but it's a foible of the human condition. My hypothesis about why we still have emotions connected to past events is because when we experienced the event and the emotions that accompanied it, our marvelously efficient brain connected the two together via neural pathways. And because we recall these events hundreds of times, the neural pathway and accompanying chemicals which are released when we remember these ugly situations is reinforced. I don't know that there's any cure, except if somehow by sheer willpower, you can ignore the emotions, or deal with them in such a way that they no longer affect you. I struggled with this in the matter of not being angry at someone who seriously hurt somebody I love. When I think of this person, I always feel that initial rush of anger, but then I have a choice. I can wallow it in, or deal with it.
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