“Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”  Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

I have a friend who is expert at moving on.  Make that, moving on and succeeding.  If anyone wins at life she does. Dealt a series of unfortunate relationships, she is still able to plot and plan for the future and surface on top.  Is she always cheerful, effervescent?  Hardly.  Is she in robust physical and mental health? Negative.  But she is able to embrace – to acknowledge the good in her memories of past relationships.  That makes it possible for her to savor past good while moving forward into the unknown.  Part of this is due to a no nonsense course of forgiveness.  Instead of continuing mired down in failure, she yet has hope in mankind and man in particular.

For me, it is frequently dangerous to embrace the good memories.  I might slide down the slippery slope to my past. I am still stalled at the idea that forgiveness means overlooking or forgetting and going back to the way things were. I like to do things right.  I am mortified when I do something wrong.  I am a great fixer. I feel I need to begin again at the stage things began to go wrong. I am Don Quixotic in my need to right the un-rightable wrong; straighten all the crooked rugs of my wake; square everything up to perfection.

Over and over I need reminders: Move forward.  Onward.  Forgive.

Quit using your freedom as an opportunity to repeat the past. Or as biblical wisdom indicates; you are called to freedom!  How do you again return to the beggarly way you used to live?

To think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure, is most certainly healing – maybe not reconciling. In my current WIP (work in progress) – my casual attempt to run alongside  NaNoWriMo – the main character is exploring the idea of forgiveness and moving forward.  How about you?  Do you wallow in the past?  Or do you think only of the past as the memory brings you pleasure?