I refuse to be held captive by my past

What’s your coping mechanism? I ask because most of us have at least one load that has shaped us into the people we are today, a heavy load that more often than not goes way back to childhood. A childhood that was characterised by either trauma or hardship.

As years go by, some manage to unburden themselves of this load and leave it in the past, where it belongs. Others place it in a certain compartment where they draw it out when their resolve to let bygones be bygones fails, in the process opening a door to bad memories that have no place in the present. Still, there are those who choose to constantly carry this load on their backs in this journey called life, meaning that they have never had the privilege to fully live in the present.

I know such a person: A brilliant woman in her mid-thirties who had an especially difficult childhood. Both her parents died when she was a young girl in primary school, and she and her four siblings were sent to live with various relatives. The aunt she went to live with was cruel, and even though she paid for her education for a period, she did it grudgingly and never allowed her to forget it. Eventually, the aunt stopped paying the fees and turned her into a house help. Life became so hard, she ran away to live in the streets, where, thankfully, she was rescued by a well-wisher and taken to a children’s home, where she grew up. To cut a long story short, this young woman managed to overcome hurdles you wouldn’t believe to go all the way to university. As I write this, she has a master’s degree and works for a major NGO, a job that has taken her all over the world and opened up career doors she would never have imagined. She is the epitome of success, and has made a comfortable life for her and her siblings, who were not as fortunate as she was.

Once in a while though, the monsters of her past rear their ugly heads and she returns to the past, and when this happens, she is unable to function, the load becomes so heavy that she has to take a break from work and her life in general since her past always manages to suffocate her present. It is also around this time that she uses her social media platforms to call out all the people that made her childhood difficult, reminding them that in spite of their cruelty, she made it and they didn’t, that they’re still where she left them. You can read the bitterness and the hurt in what she writes, hurt that is still raw decades later. She moved but she never moved on.

I don’t know about you, but I refuse to be held captive by my past. It is true, some things you never forget, but there is a big problem if the memories incapacitate you whenever they come up, as they will, once in a while. And yes, there is a big problem if these memories halt your present life. We all have a backstory, and in many cases, those around us have an even sadder backstory, but since they’ve made peace with their past, you would never tell.

The writer is editor, Society & Magazines, Daily Nation. Email: cnjunge@ ke.nationmedia.com