Dealing with the past

Hello everyone

I seem to in a bit of a quandrary at the moment.

Just over a year ago I received a kidney transplant. This was something that gave me an incredible boost. I felt an amazing release of exhilaration and exhuberance after spending so long without any real motivation. I also fell in alowed myself to fall deeply in love with a woman who I thought I would spend the rest of my life with, giving me more happiness than I could ever expect to have.

During the time that I spent on dialysis I slowly closed myself off to the world, allowing friendships to wane and reaching a point where I planned to discontinue with treatment. However, I carried on and it was only after the transplant that I realised just how bad thngs had become. It was the release of the physical and mental shackles that gave me so much joy in the period after my operation.

In the time I ws with my ex, I would occasionally become maudlin. It was a strong emotion that I could not express or articulate at the time. She used to assure me that she loved me, thinking that it was my feeling for her making me feel like this when I knew that it wasn’t this.

I now know what was happening

The nub of the problem is that I'm feeling a sense of grief at losing eight formative years of my life. Whenever I see people slightly younger than me in thier early twenties (the time that I ‘lost’ , I feel a pang of regret at all the times that I missed out on when I was going through my torment.

I missed out on developing a career, on relationships, on children, on being in a position where I could offer myself to the world and give what I could.

I really don’t know what to do in order to try and get back to the exhilaration I felt in the immediate aftermath of my operation. I had nothing at that time as a result of the way things had developed when I was on dialysis. Yet at this time I had so much motivation and vitality.

Now I seem to lack the impetus I feel that I should have. When I look back over the last year I realise that I have achieved a great deal but I really want to be able to do so much more. I feel that since I lost the love of my life, all drive has gone.

As my moniker suggests, I have doen much on looking at self-improvement since that break up. Yet I feel so much frustration with myself at my lack of inertia in not pushing myself to be more outgoing and to open myself up.

Has anybody else regretted missing part of their lives in a similar fashion and if so, how did you deal with that regret and move on with the rest of your life.

I hope this makes sense and doesn’t ramble on too much.

Hello Self

If your spending a large amount of your time living in the past, and you will know this by all those "What If" and "If Only" questions to yourself.

Then you are missing out on your life now. You are not living in the present, and you are not doing the best you can do.

You are making the past your enemy and it is stealing your time and robbing you of your life now. In other words, you are now wasting precious time worried about the time you lost before!.

Your past, and everything that leads up to right now, is gone, unchangeable, untouchable, gone forever.

You can let go of the past by, letting go of the influence it has on you now., let go by, Honoring, stop hating, regretting, wishing for and denying, accept the reality of what you had and what you missed.

you are here right now, you cannot blame your present actions or situations on the past.

Do not be afraid of your past, but let it go.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, make every day count because there may not be a tomorrow, live in the now, so that tomorrow there are no regrets of what you didn't do the day before.

As for the heartbreaks, well this is a fact of life for everyone, we all experience them, healthy or not. we all suffer and feel the pain of heartaches. its part of the life experience. but you know what? there is another person waiting for someone just like you, its time you found that love waiting for you. the time is NOW.

Gilgamesh is right.

The past can be a good thing at times, we can look back on it and learn from our mistakes, and from things we did that we found fulfillment in. It stops being useful when, instead of using any wisdom and experience gained, we let it take on a more important role than the present, and blind us to what we CAN do in the here and now. The past is there to learn from, not be strangled and held down by.

Every day you spend regretting and grieving for time you didn't have to spend on those things you feel you missed out on, is MORE time you're sacrificing to not working towards achieving them. You might be getting a later start on some things than average - but look on that as a challenge, and also as being able to see with fresh appreciation the things some people at your age take so much for granted. Experiences others may have become too jaded to appreciate you can still savor. Especially after your long term on dialysis, you have an appreciation for some of the little things many of us probably sorely lack.

In short, while you've had experiences that cost you in some ways, there are things you can reap from them. Don't lose sight of the unique perspectives you've gained in regretting the common ones you're still working on achieving.

Gilgamesh, Morrigan

Thank you both for your input.

The thing is that I know that both of you are right and I certainly do appreciate the postion I am now in being able to achieve my ambitions being limited by only my imagination, more so than most in fact.

I know that my experiences are unique and I hope to act as inspiration to others who find themselves in a similar situation. I am just frustrated with myself that I can't seem to use that inspiration on myself to create my happiness to the extent that I did a year ago.

In truth, I know what needs doing and maybe it is fear of the unknown that holds me back.

Thanks again. You've helped (I think )