Retracing My Steps

It’s a common suggestion that when you are trying to find something important you’ve lost, just retrace your steps. Go back to where you’ve been and look- you’ll likely find it there. I’m starting to think that’s kind of like what I’ve been doing lately, in a manner of speaking.

When I physically go back to a place where something in my life happened, I instantly replay the event in my mind- the sights, the sounds, the feelings… it all comes back. Sometimes so vividly that it simply amazes me.

It’s been happening so often lately, since I’ve been spending lots of time in the town I grew up in. When I go visit my old school, or church, the town theatre, the park, my grandma’s house.. almost everywhere is flooding my mind with memories of days gone by. Life-changing times, both good and bad. It can be crazy what you’ll find sometimes. The love and the laughter is there, the pain and the fear is there too. And sometimes it’s just the awkwardness and embarrassment of youth. (Oh “I wish that I knew what I know now when I was younger”…)

This process of walking in the past, my OWN past, (aside from the past I wrote about in my last blog..) always inspires me- so last year I made (and am still continuing to make) my “then and now” album with some recent photos re-creating photos from the past.

Check out my whole Then and Now album on Facebook-
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=140908&id=511106612

It’s incredible to consider who I am now after who I was then, seeing the changes as well as what has stayed the same over the years. And those things that haven’t changed… I look at those things as what can help describe true character- something that can get covered up, or that becomes hard to see- LOST, even in our own selves.

This has always been a thing for me- something I enjoy doing, am pretty good at, and what I make myself do every so often- just to make sure that I’m not losing a part of myself that I should still hang on to. It’s good to move on in life, and to grow older and wiser with each new path we take, but it feels (and often proves to be) rather foolish to forget all the footsteps you’ve made to get where you are now.

I encourage you to go back, whenever you can and in whatever way you can, and take some time walking in your old footsteps. Visit places you remember from your childhood. Look at old pictures or read old notes you’ve written long ago. Or just sit back, close your eyes, and think back to how things used to be…

You might find something you’ve lost in yourself that you didn’t even know you were looking for, and finding it again will refresh you in such an amazing way…

My time back at “home” is nearing its end- so I’m going to spend a little while longer digging in what I’ve buried behind me, and then use it to pave a new road for what lies ahead. Reminiscing with old friends, reading my old journals, walking around what used to be my only world… I love learning from what I’ve been finding. What an amazing set of footprints I’ve already left on this world so far…

The girl that was before she was,

~emjae.