Story Line

Rummaging through memories for clues on the way forward. For whatever surprises of originality the future holds, there is no disconnecting it from the past. The past can be redeemed, but the past cannot be erased. The story has many authors, so my control over its outcome is limited. I must attend to contributing my voice to the story.
It is my voice that is so deeply influenced by what happened previously. The child cannot distinguish between the voices and merely mouths the current story line. The teenager needs to cut him or herself off from the voices of the past and write a different story in order to establish his or her own voice. In adulthood, we are free to reconnect with the past without experiencing it as a threat to our own voice. In fact we realize that the story is best told when no detail is left out.