STUCK IN THE PAST

read change (kind of a part 1) here. 
I have this box that lives in my room. I bought it years ago when I wanted something to keep some personal keepsakes in. I wanted to store little parts of my past into the trunk enabling me to access and reminisce whenever I want. 

At the end of high school people brought in blank notebooks where friends would write nice messages to each other about missing each other and filled with promises of staying in contact because "you are too good of a friend to lose". I didn't want mine to be a book because I think it would sadden me to see the half empty pages that were reserved for those I hoped to have written just a sentence. Instead, I gave certain people an envelope and some paper which they could fill or just write a sentence on. I also asked them to personalize them in someway so I could remember exactly whose is whose and just make each one different. A lot I sent out never came back but I didn't care about most because the ones I got I cherish.

These letters were later added to the box where I could go back to them when I wanted to smile and feel nostalgic but that's not been the case.

I open the trunk and see the letters which I still stupidly read and, instead of being filled with happiness, I'm filled with regret. Disappointment. Loneliness. The letters are filled with false promises that I still try and excuse because I liked things how they were and because I hate change; I hate the idea that I'm not going to see the majority of these people again and their friendships will just have to be preserved a memory.

In some ways, life was easier when I was surrounded by these fake friendship because everything was more simple; easier. 

The irrational thing is that I still reread them because I wish things would go back to that time where it was easier. I'm stuck in the past and I don't know how to be freed to experience the future's potential. Nostalgia is where I seek comfort in the past and where I stay for a large percentage of my life. 

I hate to love being stuck in the past- it's unhealthy for me to be doing this. I need to get closure. I don't know how this is done but it will have to be. I really should just get rid of them even they are filled with memories of school trips, fun nights as well as containing fragments of late night conversations. 

But I can't do that- I can't rip the letters up, burn them, shred them. I can't bring myself to do that.  Not Right Now. Right now I don't have the will power to part from the letters or part from the past. 

But one day I will. One day those letters will mean shit all and I will throw them in the bin like a piece of junk mail. That will be a day that I will no longer be stuck in the past and I will be ready to look firmly to the future. 

Sarah.x