Those words weren’t spoken of a computer, Matt told me that one day when I was in an endless loop of thought, holding onto memories of a failed relationship. I told him I didn’t know how to stop and he said, “Robin, you have to rewrite your hard drive. You have to replace the memories with new experiences, things, and relationships.”
We all do it, we get stuck in a pattern of thinking. We go through the “what ifs”…what if I had been more accommodating, a better wife/mother/teacher/friend, hadn’t become angry, saved more money, staying in school, what if… You can fill in your own blank on whatever you ruminate about.
The reality is that life, right now at this moment, is exactly as it should be. All of our experiences, good and bad, have brought us to this moment. And all the rumination in the world isn’t going to change that. We are here, now. The past is the past. The problem is that the memories and the emotions surrounding past experiences paralyze us and we fixate on them. We think back to when times were good and we long for them. We get caught up in the mistakes we made and regret them. We can’t seem to let go. So the question is what do we do when where we are today isn’t where we want to be? What happens when we are assailed with memories that make us uncomfortable? We have to rewrite our hard drives of our brains with a new script which means seeking out new people and adventures.
We don’t just hold those memories in our heads, we hold them in our possessions also. I am trying to reduce my life to a bag of clothes and a bike. I do have a little room in my office for a few boxes for storage and I am determined not to pay for additional storage. So I am condensing 49 years into the 6-8 small boxes I have allowed myself to keep. It means sifting through all of my possession and considering whether it is really important to me or not. I have been amazed at how many emotions we attach to our possessions.
Today, I was packing my mother’s china. It is a set of china that she got when she married my dad so it is pretty old. My mind immediately went back to all the holiday celebrations we had as a family growing up when mom would get out the “good china”. I used the same china for my own family. Over the years a piece or two has been broken. I was carefully wrapping it up and at the same time asked myself…why am I saving this? It has no value to anyone else. My kids won’t want it after I am gone, it isn’t that attractive. What makes it hard to let it go are those memories.
That made me think back to other things that I have either lost or let go of in the past and I realized, I have replaced them with new things and new memories. I realized that Matt was right. I have rewritten the hard drive. There wasn’t one thing I have let go of that I regretted giving up. It is just stuff and getting rid of it means my kids won’t have to sort through it after I am gone.
People are harder to shed. I know that I will never see some of the people I am saying goodbye to again. Life moves on and so will they. And there is no way to tell which relationships will survive my leaving and which won’t. So, just like with the possessions, I thought about other people who have come and gone from my life. All of them have enriched my life in some way, taught me, and helped me grow. Even the relationships that turned out badly taught me something. So even though I may think back fondly to times I shared with people or think angry thoughts of a situation where I was taken advantage of, I do not regret having let people into my life for a time. Each of those experiences has brought me to where I am today. And tomorrow I will rewrite the hard drive with new experiences, people, places, and things.
The universe is exactly as it should be.
Life Divided by Zero 