Every now and then, someone remembers a version of me I wish I could revise. Maybe they heard me speak when I was certain I had all the answers. Maybe they were affected by decisions I made while believing I was helping. Their memory is real, their emotions are real and completely valid, and I don’t get to edit it just because I’ve changed. I do have to decide how to live honestly with that history now.
I know what it is to look back and once a get past the “What the hell happened?” phase I experience various emotions but “cringe” happens a lot. Sometimes the cringe is funny: an old photograph, an unfortunate haircut, an opinion delivered with the confidence only a twenty-something can muster. Sometimes it isn’t funny at all. Sometimes looking back means facing choices that affected other people, including choices I made while convinced I was doing the right thing.
It would be convenient to say, “That wasn’t really me.” But it was. I don’t think healing requires me to disown him, and accountability certainly doesn’t allow it.
What the past can tell us
The person I was can tell you where I came from. He can tell you what I believed, what I feared, and how badly I wanted to belong. He can tell you what I did. Those facts matter. They helped me understand the harm I caused and why good intentions were never enough to undo it.
But that earlier person cannot tell you everything about who I am today. In fact he would think your out of your mind to think who I am today could even exist in the realm of possibilities.
We often act as though a past belief or behavior is a receipt someone can produce to settle the question of our character forever. If you once said this, how can you say that now? If you once stood beside those people, how dare you stand here? I understand the question. I’ve had to ask it of myself. Yet if the answer is that no one can change enough for their present actions to matter, what exactly are we asking people to do when we tell them to grow?
Change doesn’t erase the record. It gives us the chance to respond to it. We can listen when people tell us we hurt them. We can make amends where possible, change our behavior, and keep that humbling stance when nobody is applauding. We can accept that some people may never trust us, and they have the right to make that choice.
Making room for the whole story
Writing my memoir brought me face to face with versions of myself I had spent years trying to outrun. I expected to find a few I could embrace and a few I’d have to endure. Instead, I began to see how each one had been trying, with whatever tools he had, to survive and find a life worth living. Some of those tools were destructive.
I can feel compassion for the frightened child and still tell the truth about the adult who caused harm. I can remember the comfort I found in faith without pretending certainty made me wise. I can love the life Dan and I have built without claiming I arrived here by a straight line or through some grand act of personal enlightenment. Lord knows there have been enough wrong turns to qualify me as my own unreliable GPS.
These days, I’m less interested in proving that I’m a completely different person. I want to be someone who can recognize his old patterns when they show up, admit when he’s wrong, and make a better choice. That is quieter than a dramatic reinvention, but it feels more honest.
Perhaps there is a version of you that you wish nobody remembered. You may still owe someone an apology. You may still have work to do. I won’t offer a shortcut around any of that. I will say that you are allowed to do the work without treating your former self as a life sentence.
The person you were is part of your story. Tell the truth about them. Never talk past what you actually know. Never tell someone else’s story. Learn what you can. Take responsibility for what needs repairing. Then let the person you are becoming have a say in what happens next.
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