It’s Okay To Not Be Over Your Past

We have to remember the past. It happened, it was there, and we just can’t forget about it. There are some people who live deeply in the past, some just a little, and some who just try to pretend it never happened.

But we never really fully get it out of our minds. The thoughts creep up to us when we’re trying to fall asleep at night or when we have a long drive home.

It’s okay though. It’s okay to live in your past every once in a while. To cringe at old memories, or cry at nostalgia, or smile at photographs. We can’t ever really escape it, we can only embrace it.

You don’t have to get over something just because someone told you to get over it. We all recover at our own pace. We all learn our lessons in time. You are allowed to not be over the past.

Because every time a relationship starts to form, I still feel old heartbreak. And every time I see old photos of people who have passed, I still feel sad.

I’m not over the past. No one is over the past and it’s okay. We’re consistently told we have to keep moving forward, look to the future, live in the present, forget the past. But we can’t do that. We can’t tell our brains to just stop thinking about things that have happened and we shouldn’t have to.

The past contains lessons we need, it brings up emotions that we can use in our present – that we need in our present. Without the past, there is no moving forward. There is no present.

It’s okay to not be over it because there’s a reason you’re still hanging on. You still feel residual heart break to remind you to be careful this time around. You still feel sadness because you are missing someone who used to be a big part of your life. You still get a slight smile because those memories were happy ones at the time.

You still feel these things because you’re not over it and maybe you’ll never be over it. As long as you turn the past into a positive path to your future, it’s okay to never get over it. Or to get over it in a couple months, or days, or years. We need those reminders in order to guide us through the future. We need the past.