Here I stand and here I'll stay

Our blog project group has once again changed by one member, but I'm still calling it Blog Project 3.0. The newest member is Darwin Shrugged, a friend of Froggie's. I recently got to know her better through "52 Stories" and I look forward to what she has to say on the upcoming topics.

This week I chose the topic: The song "Let it Go" from Frozen has been all over the place these days. So what meaning does the song have that can be applied to your life in some way?

First, read what everyone else had to share on this topic:
Darwin Shrugged
Froggie
Moma Rock

Not a day goes by when I don’t hear a song from Frozen in my house. Either it’s coming from a computer, or one of my kids. The most prevalent of these songs is “Let it Go.” While I’ve heard it ad nauseum, it still thrills me to no end that my daughter knows the tune and most of the words and even does hand motions to go with it. She also adds in the little chiming sound at the end.

Anyway, I posed this week’s question because there is a lot of meaning to be derived from “Let it Go,” whether it’s personal empowerment or comfort, or even something deeper. The line that speaks to me the most is “The past is in the past.” (I also love how my daughter emphasizes each word of that line…)

I tend to talk about the past a lot, but without memories, where would my blog be? I like collecting memories and sharing them here. They attribute to my personality and make me who I am today. However, I get stuck in my negative past memories and need to just shake them off as a learning experience. I can’t get into a time machine and go back and change them. What’s done is done and it can’t be erased. Each experience has shaped who I am, but I’ve realized that I don’t need to dwell on them as much as focus on the good memories. I’m the one in control of what I want to think about (or at least I hope I am). So, while I’ve talked about experiences with bullying, bad jobs, toxic friendships, places where I didn’t feel welcome, relationships gone wrong—the list could go on for a while here—they’re now out of my system and I can only move forward. I can take the good from such experiences, such as a lesson learned or something better that came out of it, and pass that knowledge along.

Another aspect of my life where the past is in the past has to do with relationships. Mainly friendships, in this case. I’ve had many different friendships over the years. Some I have carried with me to the present day and our friendships are still going strong, even when we aren’t sharing the same physical space and others dropped off somewhere in the past where they can’t even be accessed anymore. While it’s sad that some friendships didn’t have lasting power, I’ve made some amazing new friends since that time and feel it’s important to focus on those instead of on people who clearly don’t give a damn about the friendship we had ages ago. While there are some people who could be easily found to re-establish a connection, if that friendship was meant to be brought to life again, it would have by now. In some particular cases, I have blocked people from Facebook so that I’m no longer tempted to see what they are up to. I know that sounds drastic, but it’s better for my overall well-being. I have so much other stuff going on that I don’t need to waste my time wondering what is going on with someone who wrote me off over a decade ago. There are other people who can’t be found at all online and I’ve finally given up trying.

This also applies to past romantic relationships. There’s only one guy I dated with whom I am still in touch. And that’s sporadically because he’s not on Facebook. We only dated a few months and decided at the same time to just be friends, so there’s really nothing awkward lingering from the past. I almost said “the three words” to him when we were dating, but am glad he stopped me because I was rebounding at the time and all caught up on my emotions. We went to each other’s weddings and we e-mail from time to time. He’s a cool guy and I only wish good things for him. Conversely, I wrote in my blog last year about thanking my first ever boyfriend for giving me a good relationship to start out with. At the time, we were also friends who e-mailed sporadically. Even if we had some history, like previous inside jokes, it really was all in the past and we’re both married with kids. So I thought we could stay friends, but I have decided to give up as it seemed like the friendship was one-sided. I would send a friendly e-mail from time to time and he’d respond, but after he didn’t respond to my birthday message and I realized he never reached out on my birthday, I decided to give up the ghost, so to speak. I wish him only good things, as well, but I’m done making any effort toward having a friendship.

In between that mix is a platonic guy friend from college whom I e-mail with once a year, on his birthday. He writes back and we exchange pictures of our kids. It's all easygoing and I know what to expect from this friendship. I still wish he were on Facebook as I know I'm not the only one who would be glad to connect with him more often throughout the year. I think he'd get along with some of my other friends whom he hasn't met yet, as well as my husband. So I plan to maintain that friendship in the low maintenance way that I do, as it was a positive relationship and I don't plan to "let it go" as easily as I do others with whom I am not in touch. It's definitely harder to maintain friendships without Facebook and I need to be better about staying in touch with the friends I care about who aren't on there. I'm seeing one of them in a couple of months and am excited about that!

Elsa said it well when she declared that the past is in the past because it truly is. While it doesn’t mean I’m going to set foot inside an IHOP or attend my high school reunion, it does mean that I like where I am in my life and who I choose to share it with. Having said that, I didn't feel so anxious when recently passing by a town that used to fill me with dread. I also want to thank Elsa for giving me the opportunity to think about how I maintain my friendships and which ones are worth keeping in the long run.