Episode Summary
Today I have visited where I grew up and it stimulated some important questions about my past and about my future.
Episode Transcript (Edited)
Hi and welcome to today’s episode of Hope, Help, Happiness.
Today I’ve been home and been back to where I grew up. It’s about a two hour drive from here and today’s been a day where I’ve gone and visited family.
It’s been interesting going home. I don’t go back very often. It’s where I grew up. It’s where I went to school both at infant school and high school.
It’s the place where my parents were when they got divorced. It’s where I lived as part of a single parent family. It’s where I lived when that family evolved into a normal family when my stepfather came along.
It’s the place where I experienced my first emotions; where I had my first rebellious cigarette; where I had my first underage drink; and it’s where I lost my virginity.
It’s a place where I met, fell in love and got married. And now its the place where my ex wife lives.
So there’s a lot of memories. A lot of the informative part of my life was spent there and it’s always interesting going back.
The place has changed as you’d expect. There are new road layouts, new buildings, and there’s a different feel to the place.
But there are still echoes and ghosts of the past as I was driving into the town and around part of the area where I used to live.
Memories were triggered by buildings; by particular junctions in the road. Various landmarks triggered memories and sometimes the absence of a landmark that was so firmly part of growing up that is no longer there also took me back. There are even shops in the same places where they used to be 35-40 years ago.
So it’s interesting going back there, especially with the experience I’ve gone through over the last couple of years. I realise the foundations of what I’ve been through and the challenges I’ve had were laid down in this place.
I always think about the past and how things have evolved from that time.
And there are questions going through my mind at the moment.
Do I need to go back and fix what was laid down back those days?
Or do I just need to learn to manage the impact of those event?
Or do I do both?
Having decided yesterday that I needed to go deeper, it’s probably a combination of both.
I suppose a question I also have, particularly in light of the fact that I keep raising my awareness to what’s happened and what I need to do through this podcast, is this one:
When do I stop obsessing about the challenges I’ve had and how I’m going to deal with them and when can I just start living a normal life?
I’m not sure I’ll ever know the answer to that question.
Until tomorrow.
