Old Stories
Have you ever repeated a story so many times, you get tired of telling it?
Maybe it’s a question you get asked a lot, and the only sane way to deal with it is to recite a rehearsed story. “When are you getting married?” “When are you having kids?” “How did you gain so much weight?” “How did you lose so much weight?” (These were all FAQ’s at different points in my life. Super fun.)
I actually love stories. Storytime in the library in elementary school was the absolute best shit ever. I think I’ve always been fascinated by them. Stories help us understand the world and each other. They give us a glimpse into the lives of those we love and care about before we knew of their existence, or before we came into existence. I love hearing stories about the funny shit Noah did as a kid, the crazy shenanigans he got up to as a teenager. I love hearing about my sister’s travels, my mom and dad’s very different childhoods growing up in Hong Kong in the 60’s, about their experience as immigrants coming here in the early 80’s. We live in a migration hub - anywhere you look there is a story waiting to be told. Not to mention the millions of stories told in books that help us relate to someone we’d never meet, and yet can totally relate to.
And then there are the stories we tell ourselves. About who we are, and why we are.
Every being on earth has a past. It’s the inescapable quality of life. That we are one thing, and then it changes. I think how much we let our past play into our present is the question worth asking.
For a long time, I was quite lonely. I’d say it started around age 13 until 19. The age when I felt most in limbo. I was old enough to hate being treated like a child, yet too young to move out and live on my own. Friends kept moving away, and it seemed hard to fit in anywhere. That combined with an Asian family that hated to talk about feelings made me really believe there was something wrong with me. Happiness seemed so unattainable.
From age 20 to 29 was just mistake-making city. A lifestyle that was “trying to catch up for lost time” meant a lot of mornings filled with regret and a lot of weeks replaying said mistakes over and over again until the next weekend came so I could do it all over again. And despite the whirlwind of people coming in and out of my life, the loneliness never left. It still felt like people were going to leave at any given moment. I still felt like 13 year old me in limbo.
2016 was kind of a big deal lol. I guess I’d always thought by 30 I’d have it figured out. And in some ways I did. I’d adopted Lady (one of the best decisions I’d ever made) and had her for three years at that point, Noah and I were making a lot of changes for our health, particularly in diet and lifestyle. Noah had got me to start working out - which was one habit that really saved me in a lot of ways. But I still hadn’t found a balance. I still hadn’t let go of the past. Even though I was making positive changes in my life, I still believed I was that shitty, faltering person in my early 20’s. I couldn’t stop telling myself the stories that came to haunt me at all hours of the day. Nighttime was the worst. The air was thick with pollution from Mistake City. I literally couldn’t breathe at times from anxiety so sharp it was like a stab in the ribs. Noah would hear me gasp and ask what was wrong. I’d reply, resignedly, “just a bad memory again.”
Our brains replay scenarios when we don’t heal them, trying to protect us from the same thing repeating. We don’t heal when we allow the same story to be told again and again, to ourselves and to others, reinforcing it in our memory and body. Even when we start to grow as people, sometimes the story we’re telling ourselves is that because of that person we hurt or the person who hurt us or the experience that we replay over and over makes us inherently bad or unworthy people that have no hope of becoming better. We become the very thing that stops our own progress and growth.
And if we’re willing to tell ourselves a different story, our brains will learn to relax and adapt. Like everything else in our bodies, what we choose to do affects how it functions. How we choose to live affects how we feel. How we choose to see things affect how we live. Regret can tear us down and cause ceaseless suffering if we let it. It can also be the most valuable teacher. As Brene Brown in Atlas of the Heart says, “Regret has taught me that living outside my values is not tenable for me. Regrets about not taking chances have made me braver. Regrets about shaming or blaming people I care about have made me more thoughtful. Sometimes the most uncomfortable learning is the most powerful.”
Letting go of the past is kind of like cutting out a tumor. It sucks, and you have no idea how deep it goes. It’ll leave a hole inside you for awhile, as you figure out who you are now without the surety of a practiced story. And it also leaves a space for possibility. I started giving myself permission to stop punishing me for something I did ten years ago. I took a deep breath every time a malignant memory came to visit and gently, shakily, sometimes painfully sighed, “Thank you for the lesson. I’m okay now. You can go.” I realized that the one thing that couldn’t be taken away from me was the choice to change whenever I wanted to. Even if I couldn’t change my surroundings or people, I could change my mind. Knowing I always have this to count on helped me to start letting go of the constant anxiety of fucking up.
So whatever old story you’re still telling yourself, ask yourself if it’s holding you back. Ask yourself if it’s weighing you down. And then ask yourself why you will allow it to continue to do so. How do these old stories feel in your body when you tell them? Is it a release, or simply a safe, rehearsed version that gets you by, that stops the questions? How much more pain and grief are you willing to store? And what if you were to release them?
Your mind will chatter away endlessly no matter what. Respond accordingly. Choose the stories you’d like to hear. Choose the reality you’d like to live. Look for the support to make it happen. And take responsibility for your present. Your past isn’t here anymore. It never was.
