Sometimes I ask myself why memories are so hard to forget. Good times are rarely remembered and bad times are rarely forgotten.
As I sit here, I watch the waves hit the sand and it gets me thinking about memories. It's interesting how the waves come crashing towards the land, yet when they leave they do it slowly and linger. Like the waves don't want to leave but have to because of some divine intervention. Like the waves, my memories come crashing into my brain at the most unexpected moments and then they linger like the waves. They just won't leave me. To actually sit here at the beach today and be relaxed is a big step for me. For years the beach haunted me. People went there to relax and I would cringe. I would cringe for that one random memory that I had; an incident at the beach that made me so sad. Where people felt the calmness and tranquility in the sound of the waves for me it was more like the waves were angry and reminding me of my mortality. They were showing me how insignificant I was compared to their vastness. That is how I was made to feel on that one fateful day where the beach became my enemy.
It is so interesting how as humans we can take one memory and use it to stop us from creating more positive ones. We take negative thoughts from the past and allow them to control our future happiness. Sometimes I wonder why we do that. Why as humans it's so easy for us to think of negative things yet throws away all the good things. We can have a hundred blessings in a day yet we pull ourselves down because of one small thing that we believe is not fair to us.
Yes I am also guilty of this. But once I realized I was jeopardizing my future memories because of a stupid incident from the past, I knew I had to create a bucket list. Not a bucket list of adventures or unfulfilled dreams but of negative memories that I had to erase, of places that I hated to go to and had bad memories of. I had to embrace these places and moments in order to move forward.
So the first place I had to conquer was the beach. I needed to go there and do something that would take away my fear. The funny thing is that I don't even know what I was afraid of. If I had one bad experience at the beach why would I relate fear with going to the beach? After making the bucket list the first time I went to the beach it was with a friend. I was stressed and upset and ended up having a huge argument with my friend. Later I explained my issues with her and we worked things out.
So today I made my next attempt to get over my fear of the beach. It was hard but because of a family get together I had no escape. So I sat there and stared at the monster in front of me. I took my laptop and music to avoid the sound of the waves and to block out the view by looking at my laptop. But of course because I have God on my side, my laptop and phone both died. With nowhere to plug them in I had to sit on my chair facing the beach. I looked at the monster in front of me. I thought of the memory, I sat with it and lived every minute of it. I cried and meditated and eventually without realizing it the sounds of the waves started to calm me. I became still inside of myself and it was like I just allowed the memory to pass right through me. It sat in me, tortured me, tested me but I had no option to run away from it. When it saw that I was as strong as it was it became an insignificant part of my past.
Because why battle with something that is stronger than you?
I am sure the memory hasn't left me fully but I have conquered it. One thing off the bucket list now for the next...