Tag Archives: past lives

The Past Is Writing Letters to the Present

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Lately, I have had a growing interest in the exploration of my roots, my past, and the road that has been walked by those whose faces I’ve never seen. It started as simple genetic curiosity, wondering where my family had been…and where it was most likely going. But it evolved into a headfirst obituary deep dive. Who were these people? How did they live? What pieces of the past were they passing down through the generations?

Based on a Yahtzee cup shake and toss, I was given a randomized mix of cells on a blank sheet of source code. A hand with tightly crossed fingers let the dice fly, and with that action, a tiny carbon being with multiple lifetimes’ worth of history behind him was let loose on the planet.

But how much of our journey is dictated by these former lives, specific hardwiring, and our core composition? Will the decisions we make and the path we think we have the power to choose ever be able to supersede a wet-inked blueprint just waiting for us to finish our scripted sentences while monitoring that straight-line slide from point A to point B?

I can’t remember my father’s face.

I keep trying to visualize what he looked like, especially at my age, but there’s a dark spot in my mind and I can’t complete the picture. I think that’s probably what pushed me onto this tangent. Then, as always, that small spark ignited an obsessive interest in exceptionally complex scientific information that led me down rabbit hole after rabbit hole. Ultimately, all I learned was that I probably need someone on standby with a mental lasso to save me from myself and pull me back into focus.

Still, the notion that we are all just pieces of the present delivering messages from the past is a fascinating and baffling concept. It goes beyond simply having your “grandpa’s eyes.” When you frame your entire existence in the context of human beings as living, breathing time capsules, it brings a greater sense of purpose and responsibility into focus.

So honor the past by making the most of the present…especially if you’re the last of your line.

Adolescence Interrupted

Brain Pain

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The pressure is mounting. My skull’s nerve endings are a direct gauge of what’s happening inside, but the psychological sludge is far meaner a foe. I never imagined I would have been so thoroughly thrust back into the guessing game after all these years, but apparently there is no such thing as healed.

Anger has taken occupancy where tears used to reside, and my naked defiance has been a strange bedfellow. As I’ve gotten older and further away from the hospital sheets and question marks, I’ve also become less tolerant of a body that refuses to play nice.

I live in a constant state of mild pain. Tennis, car crashes, too many years spent sliding around on skateboards…who knows? I’m fine accepting the fact that an aging body put through the rigors of extensive activity will show some signs of wear and tear. That’s normal and acceptable.

But after what I had to go through to be free of the daily shackles that kept me clutching CT scans and neurosurgeon phone numbers, this universal slap in the self-esteem seems unwarranted and cruel.

I feel like I’m karmically aligned. I try to treat other people well, give to those less fortunate, and walk a path of positivity and integrity. But there is a devil on this shoulder, and I can’t help but wonder if I’m making up for past transgressions.

I believe we have a series of lives and experiences built into the core of our foundation, and this particular lap may simply be penance for sins from an old story. I suspect I’m supposed to learn some universal lesson as I clutch a head of such unbearable compression that I’m waiting for it to explode in my palms, but it’s hard to make peace with a timeline of souls that I can’t even see.

Some wackadoo massage therapist once said that the tension and strain I carry around my neck and shoulders are from hangings I was subjected to in past lives. She told me all about the villagers who gathered to burn me in the square and detailed the number of times I suffered a fractured spine at the hands of these irate mobs.

I left that day thinking she was quite possibly the most insane person ever to work at a spa. Now I’m starting to believe she was onto something.

Adolescence Interrupted