musings in motion
reflective thoughts, lightly edited
*This post was originally written in January of 2022 and is now being published for the first time*
Recently, I’ve been going for nightly walks. I live on the outskirts of my university and have started winding down my days with an hour-long stroll through campus.
Sometimes I bring my earbuds, sometimes I raw dog it. Regardless, my walks always end up putting me into a reflective state.
I’ve never been one for walking, but I have an active brain and have found that walking slows me down a little bit. I spend a lot of time in my head, and the act of walking usually offers clarity to my otherwise overwhelming thoughts.
As I walk through campus, I watch others go about their lives, imagining myself in their shoes.
I wonder what they might be experiencing at that moment, where they’re coming from, or where they might be headed.
This people-watching almost always turns my attention inward, and I begin thinking about my own experiences over the past four years.
Each walk brings memories forward I’d long forgotten, buried between the folds of time. Each walk reminds me of the people I’ve wronged and the people who’ve wronged me. I get glimpses of moments of joy and flashbacks to periods of stress-induced delusion.
The library brings back feelings of amazement, the foolishness of my countless all-nighters finally hitting me.
The tallest building on campus fetches feelings of brazenness, boldly sneaking past locked gates to stargaze atop the staircase.
The computer lab provokes feelings of vigorousness, brought on after winning a class competition during my first semester.
Random moments, I’d thought to be insignificant — but after closer reflection, moments that have shaped and defined who I’ve become.
I have a tough time putting into words the feelings I experience on these walks. They’re simultaneously overwhelming and fleeting. Reflections of my past and glimpses into possible lives never lived.
I’ve been struggling to process the mixed emotions these walks bring. Occasionally, I’m brought close to tears for reasons I cannot explain.
I’ve had a tough year and am at a place in life that I didn’t expect to be. I’m grateful for the lessons I’ve learned as a result, but still, it’s been a process of reconciling where I thought I’d be at this point in my life and where I actually am.
I know my feelings are natural, and I know this time will pass. I had a tough transition from high school to college and have taken proactive steps to set myself up for an easier transition into ‘adulthood.’ But cognitively recognizing the dissonance I’m experiencing doesn’t lessen the emotions.
I have loving and supportive parents and great friends, but most of my college experience was processed alone. The experiences were had with friends, family, and peers, but the emotions — the joy, the hurt, the stress, and the struggle experienced mainly on my own.
I know that’s how life is a lot of times, everyone fights battles others don’t see, but I feel like I’ve held on to these emotions for so long — too long.
My nightly walks have a funny way of poignantly bringing forward some of these half-processed emotions. Uncovering an event, friendship, or moment from the depths of my memory and forcing me to come to terms with it — and ultimately to let go.
I have a tough time letting go.
Letting go of the possibilities of the past. Letting go of the past versions of myself. It’s not erasure, although it can sometimes feel like it. Instead, it’s a process of recognition and unburdening.
As I start to build up a new life for myself, I’m reminded that I can’t be a new, better version of myself when I’m weighed down by the habits, practices, and beliefs of my past. For so long, I interpreted this lesson as justification for the complete dissociation of my past.
I’ve come to realize, through experience, that exiling my past only leaves me more lost and confused, devoid of a foundation on which to build my new self.
But that new self, the me I’m in the process of becoming, is for another day.
Right now is for walking and reminiscing — making peace with the past to progress in the future.
