When the Present Starts Feeling Like the Past

Hey there, Standing on the Ledge. How are you today?

I haven’t posted here in a few days. I’ve been busy over on the other blog chasing rabbits down holes, following one question into another and generally trying to keep my mind occupied.

Sometimes keeping busy is productive.

Sometimes keeping busy is just keeping busy.

Either way, I really didn’t think I had much of value to say over here.

Until today.

A few days ago I wrote about something strange that had been happening. I kept catching myself absentmindedly fiddling with a wedding ring that hasn’t been on my finger for years. I could almost feel the weight of it. Feel the metal. Hear that little imaginary clink as I turned it around my finger.

At the time, I didn’t understand why.

I think I do now.

And strangely enough, it wasn’t really about the ring.

It was about recognition.

My current life situation has started resembling the final year of my marriage in ways I apparently hadn’t consciously put together yet.

Same kinds of patterns.

Same kinds of frustrations.

Same feeling of carrying stress that other people may or may not even realize they are creating.

A few things happened over the weekend, and then a few more things happened today, and suddenly the pieces connected.

There it was.

I’ve been here before.

Maybe that’s what the phantom ring was.

Not nostalgia. Not some hidden desire to go backward. Not necessarily anything mystical at all.

Maybe my brain recognized the pattern before I consciously did.

We are remarkably good at pattern recognition. Something happening today can resemble something from years ago closely enough that an old memory, sensation, emotion or behaviour gets stirred up before we can explain why.

The conscious mind may still be saying, “What the hell is going on?” while some quieter part of us has already noticed: This feels familiar.

Apparently mine chose a wedding ring to make the point.

Message received.

Unfortunately, understanding the message doesn’t make me particularly happy about what it is telling me.

I am not liking where things are right now.

Not one bit.

And perhaps the bigger problem isn’t simply that the present resembles the past. It’s knowing where that past eventually went.

That’s the part that bothers me.

Once you’ve lived through something difficult, recognizing the early pattern again creates a different kind of stress. You’re not only dealing with what is happening today. You’re remembering where similar circumstances once led.

But there is an important difference this time.

I am not the same person who lived through it the first time.

I know more now.

I recognize more now.

I understand boundaries better. I understand communication better. I understand conflict better. And perhaps most importantly, I understand that endlessly tolerating a situation while waiting for someone else to change is still a choice.

That doesn’t mean I’m going to make some dramatic decision tonight.

I’m still working through this.

There are things happening that I don’t want to put into words publicly right now. Some things need to stay off the internet while I figure out what I actually think and what I actually want to do.

That’s probably the sensible thing.

But I know one thing.

Something has to change.

People around me have responsibilities. They have things they need to do. They have choices about whether they contribute to making the situation better or continue adding to the problem.

I cannot make those choices for them.

That might be the uncomfortable lesson here.

I can ask.

I can communicate.

I can explain.

I can give people opportunities to step up.

But eventually my responsibility stops being convincing other people to change and becomes deciding what I am willing to continue living with.

That’s agency.

And agency doesn’t always mean immediately blowing everything up.

Sometimes agency is simply reaching the point where you stop telling yourself that you have no choices.

I have choices.

I don’t particularly want to have to make some of them.

Other people may not particularly like some of them.

But pretending those choices don’t exist isn’t going to make the stress disappear.

So that’s where I’m standing tonight.

Not at a conclusion.

Not with everything figured out.

Just recognizing something I apparently started recognizing before I even understood what I was recognizing.

A phantom wedding ring.

A familiar feeling.

An old pattern appearing in a new chapter.

The difference is that this time I saw it.

What happens next?

I don’t know yet.

But something has to change.

That’s it. That’s all for now.

Godspeed.