The weight of time

The story

The weight of time

The past slowly shaped the way he existed. It seemed impossible for him to let go of anything that carried a connection to a person or an event. Samuel didn’t understand the concept of time, or perhaps, on some level, he didn’t want to. In the deepest part of his longing, he wished he could gather all seconds and all moments. He wanted to live them all at once, and perhaps, in doing so, reach eternity. His constant failure to achieve this could paralyze him, almost literally.

He would sit there, and let the flood of thoughts and feelings about what once had been, wash over him.

There had always been a hesitation to let go. Every nostalgic feeling he experienced kept pushing him toward holding on. Tightly and with determination.

In his thoughts, there was always the need to reshape the past, to correct mistakes, or to adjust decisions. That perfectionist side of his personality extended into other areas as well. But his inability to let go, using it as a way to bend time in his mind, eventually became very hard to bear.

An insight came that sometimes room needs to be made. In his mind and in his home. That transition took time. We are talking about several years. Step by step, he let go of people from his past. Every now and then, something would be taken to the recycling center. Only when he felt and understood that he was buying his freedom this way, did he finally throw away certain things that had once been of immeasurable value to him. Such as handwritten letters from people who were no longer in his life.

He learned that memories were not meant to hang on to. He discovered that keeping the past out of the present held its own value. It no longer held him captive. They became markers of a life once lived, and nothing more than that. By letting go and turning his attention to the present, he created unexpected moments of peace.