My Past Will Not Dictate My Future

I have had a rather, shall I say, goolosh, of a past in that there has been a little bit of everything in it. There's been great and wonderful experiences, happy times and fun memories of good things and then there has also been some difficult and hard times and some disparaging events where there seemed like there was no hope mixed with lots of emotional turmoil.  Things weren't always easy for me before the accident. But that doesn't need to dictate how the rest of my life will be.

The night of my accident is a big black space in my mind. I don't remember anything about that night. All I have are second hand accounts from my mother and father. The brain is an incredible organ of our bodies in that in the event of a terrible trauma it can, but not always, protect us by blocking any memories of the trauma often even blocking days, weeks, months before the occurrence of the traumatic event. Such a block of memories of my traumatic experience happened to me, not just for that night but also for about a week before as well. I sometimes wish I knew what happened that night that caused me to be burned so badly but then a bigger part of me is thankful that that was blocked from my memory. Being burned alive is not exactly the type of thing you want to remember. The only problem I have with it is it makes it hard to answer the first question people ask - how did you get burned?
Since that night, my life has become divided into "Before the accident" and "After the accident."  And what I consider, "my past," lies primarily in that, "before the accident" sector of my life even though it has almost been 7 years since that night. Even though a lot of good things took place in my past and I have many good memories from then, I can't help but allow those bad parts of my past dominate and taint everything else. And I think it's because the bad parts of my past were so out of character of who I was. I lost my moral compass for a bit during a couple times in my life before the accident. I'm certainly not proud of my choices during those times when I had a lapse in my character. In fact, it's downright embarrassing. But what I need to learn is those moral lapses in my past DO NOT need to dictate my future. And most of all, though the dreams I had for my future since I was a little girl have basically been crushed and ripped from my hands, never to be a glimmering possibility for me again, doesn't mean that my future cannot be better than I ever imagined it to be when I was dreaming about it prior to the accident. I just need to explore all the avenues available to me and find what ignites that same fire in me that acting/performing does.
And it's not enough to just explore all those avenues available, but I must stay open to the different possibilities for my new future. That, I think is the hard part when you've been so in love with a certain profession just about all your life that that's all you can see that will make you happy and make for the most amazing future. My head, heart and soul must all open themselves to what else is out there that could create a future better than I ever imagined possible after an accident that nearly claimed all possibilities for such a future by taking my life. I still have my life, though the quality has been quite severely lowered, and therefore I still have a future ahead of me that shall not be shaped by any mistakes or bad choices I made in my past. Nor should I let the dark clouds of my accident that shroud my present daily life rob me of dreaming and taking action for a new future that can be better than I ever imagined for myself post accident.

Peace and Love.