My father used to say that if you keep looking back you’re going to trip going forward. That in life, sometimes you reach a fork in the road and you have to make a decision. Which direction will it be? Left or right?
To be firm in that decision you can’t keep looking back. You have to make peace with the past. It doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time for wounds to heal. But I had time. Three years to think about it all. The relationships that matter most. The ones that have run their course. The mistakes I can’t afford to make again. My strengths. My shortcomings. My limits. The way I’ve got to respond when times get tough again because tough times are a part of life. It’s how you bounce back from those moments that make you who you are.
Three years to replay things in my head over and over and over until I stopped replaying them. Until I just let them go.
If you keep lookin’ back you gon’ trip going forward.
I’ve taken heed of that. To start a new chapter you’ve got to turn the page on the last one. Still, every now and then I do think it’s okay to stop and look back, just for a moment, before continuing on your way. Especially when it’s a hell of a story.