I have not been where I grew up in almost a year, and it is the longest I have gone away from family. Going back to a place where you went through so much can feel overwhelming because of the memories and emotions it can bring up. Although learning “to be on your own” may have been challenging, I feel I grew and learned much about myself.
However, something I was talking about with a friend earlier today is how you sometimes feel that when you grow, you want to feel like the things around you grow as well. It isn’t to say that others don’t grow, but how it feels to go back to a place from your past that you have not been to in a while, and it brings up memories. I feel like the moment we take that step to grow and get out of our comfort zone is when our surroundings and perspective of what we want in life change.
But it is going back to that place that puts you to the test to see if you did grow and how you would react to similar situations presented to you in the past. When I say that it will put you to the test, I refer to what triggers you, how you respond, and what you simply let go of. But of course, it doesn’t entirely define whether you have matured or grown; memories, trauma, and your past are part of who you are. I feel like when we leave that place for a while, we find a way to put that in a box in our mind so we can revisit it whenever. However, if we leave it there for too long without dealing with it or even accepting that it is there, I think we feel surprised when it reappears and makes us feel vulnerable. But it is okay to allow yourself to revisit your past because it helped you become who you are, but it doesn’t define you; it is only part of you.
We may need not to let go of our past but accept it and let it be part of us without defining us entirely. Perhaps we become fixated on solving the past, and we feel stuck there, and that’s why it is so hard to allow other things to come in. Maybe when we start to grow, we stop fighting or avoiding where we came from and just know that it was a path that led us to where we are now. But just like any path, there are different directions, obstacles and people we meet along the way; it is up to us to embrace this journey of growth by accepting what happened, welcoming what is to come and enjoying what we have now.
Z.
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