From the boxes in the basement

It would have been too easy to have just taken the boxes that have been sitting there for two years and put them somewhere else. And, of course, they were full of things I didn’t know what to do with and so I had to go through them.

I found hundreds of cassette tapes and hundreds of miscellaneous pictures. Which, of course I had to look through.

I randomly pulled out a tape from 1986 from an old “friend.” He was a boy and he was a friend. And of course I had to listen to it. It took me back. To feelings and memories. That I get stuck in. Until I talk to old friends, special friends, who know me and have known me for years…

So my good friend who has known me for over 25 years wrote me this, which helped a lot:

try and remember this. . . let yourself remember. . .it is a part of who you are. . . . if you dwell on it you will miss the NOW and the time that you are sharing this moment with your family. . . .
I have found that its not the memories that keep me in a wrong place its the dwelling. . . . .

So now I will remember, but not dwell – thank you wise friend!

How do you go back and remember, but not dwell? Any advice?