A need to move on...

I need to move on. Live my own life, but how does one break with the past and yet still be part of it? I’m consumed by my childhood, my parents and their lives. Not mine.

Right now I am sorting through old papers of my Father’s. Most have so far been what I expected to see – receipts, pamphlets, booklets; he was a paper pack rat. Some things I wasn’t expecting such as opening an envelope that contained pictures (with the negatives) and finding that they were of my Mother as she lay in her casket.

Then there are the old family letters the “Round Robin” letters of my Father’s Generation, which I think I should transcribe into the computer and put in a book, sort of a glimpse of the past – but who would be interested? I mean it is not as if he were famous or an important person in world affairs, he was just a hard-working man trying to support his family and at the same time enjoy his life and he did.

But I find myself, tied to the past, tied to his life through his papers, final affairs and his wife. Consequently I have no life of my own. My life is that of others, dealing with their life’s issues, solving their dilemma’s and having nothing of my own to celebrate or live for.

Sad commentary on what my life seems to have become. So I need to move on and break those ties, but do I have the resolve and the courage to do so? All my life I have taken the easy road, the less risky path and where has it gotten me? Sure I am relatively financially secure – until the first real big illness strikes – can’t afford health insurance, which is sad commentary on our times. But emotionally, how I feel about myself I am not so sure. I have regrets, I wish I could go back and do things differently, or take back something that happened or I did, but I can’t and right now I can’t seem to get past that and it is tearing me apart.

I need to set some goals, to formulate that list of things I want to do and check them off as I do them. Not things that need to be done, things outside of the ordinary, things out of character.