One thing that seems to have stuck with me since embarking on and returning from the epic I’m With Phil trip to Phil Campbell, AL (with @PhilCampbell from England) is the word “bygones“. Perhaps it’s in my head because it seemed that Phil used it a lot when talking about his ever-transforming personal insight, but I think I more likely “borrowed” it from him to help me define what I’ve been trying to do with my own life in the last several months and what I need to continue doing as I move forward.
You see, I’m not so good with letting things go – As hard as I hold on to those things near and dear to me I oftentimes also hold onto things that should be put firmly into the past. Even unhealthy and damaging things are familiar and easy to cling to than the unknown.
Letting go and moving forward is the unknown…
I’m realizing a lot of (new) things about myself these days. Of course being in the middle of the biggest #WTFAmI roadtrip of my life helps a lot. While I’m laying rubber down on pavement to the tune of 3,500 miles (one-way!) I have a whole lot of time to be inside my own head. The trips I take have always been the best atmosphere I’ve found for myself to figure out… well, myself. A lot of road, miles, and time spent driving does for me what money some throw at therapists perhaps do for them. While I’m not knocking therapy (to each his/her own, eh?) I already know myself pretty darn well and understand where at least 90% of my issues stem from – the challenge then lies in what to do with said understanding…
For me, the struggle is in learning to allow myself to let bygones be just that – bygones – and to move on. Giving myself permission to leave things in the past gives me a powerful feeling of self-assurance, but renewing that permission every day takes effort and the oftentimes negative emotions that result are not easily surpassed or overcome.
I’m making progress with figuring out some of the confusion (at least that which exists inside my own head) even though my current state of confusion is a lot blurrier than usual. I really am trying to focus on moving forward and in learning to shrug off things that amount to “excess baggage”.
Bygones. I’m learning to move on.
© 2011 – 2012, Krissi Bates-Billings. (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
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