Letting The Past Withdraw

"There is no past we can bring back by longing for it.  There is only an eternally new now that builds and creates itself out of the Best as the past withdraws."  ~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

This quote hits me particularly hard.  You all know how much I have talked about longing for the past.   Because of a terrible accident that almost took my life and has completely changed my life, my present is often a living hell and my future feels destroyed.  Oh yes, I have longed for a past that was the high of my life.  When anything seemed possible and my present a daily joy to live, my future bright and optimistic.  It was when I had just moved to New York City.  I loved this exciting new world I was living in, the culture, I was thin and fit, I loved my day (well, night) job, I had wonderful new friends to laugh with and experience life with, and I was living the dream I had dreamed about since I was a girl: to live in New York City and pursue my acting career.

Yes, I long for that past every day.  But, I can't bring it back by longing for it.  There is nothing I can do to bring it back.  And there's nothing I can do to change the pieces of my past that I wish I could change.  That's why it's the past.  I must move on by living in the eternal now and allow that past to withdraw - withdraw into simply great memories.  The present and future are where I must learn to concentrate my efforts because that's where my happiness is built and created now.  That's where I can make a difference in my life.

But I feel a little stuck in the "inbetween."  What I mean by that is, I'm stuck inbetween what was and what could be.  I think being stuck in this inbetween state contributes a lot to my unhappiness because this is where I long for what was and where I am unsure of what could be and also what could be if I just let the past go.  I can't get back what was.  Life cannot be lived in the past.  Life is lived forwards.  The only way for me to get out of the "inbetween" is to learn to let go of what was and look forward to the posibilities of what could be.  It's a long, hard journey letting go of what was but if I can start focusing more on what could be, maybe the what was, the past, will slowly withdraw without me even noticing.