Should You Chase Down A Past Love?

by Sarah Jane Shangraw

How after years of depression or running from aspects of ourselves, when we rediscover a more authentic self similar to who we were when we were younger and less crazed, we might find ourselves preferring a life or a lover we admired or desired back then, as opposed to the mate we chose and settled in with during the years of frenzy.

How it helps to respect the decisions we made when we were younger—and respect our younger selves who made those decisions; we might make decisions differently now, but our younger selves did the best possible given the resources and circumstances and knowledge available at the time. And how there will always be moments we yearn to go back, but in other moments when we can live fully in the present, we are more free than we can otherwise be.

Oh, and how we think we know someone just because we’ve corresponded with him a bit, when really we haven’t even seen him for 13 years, so how can we know really who he is? Wacky. And also, perhaps, wonderful. Even if for now, or forever, it’s from afar.