writing for self-discovery

There are immediate yesterdays and distant yesterdays.

I’ve been immersed in the distant yesterdays of the 1700s. Maria Theresa succeeded King Charles, her father, when he died in 1740 and became queen of  Hungary and Bohemia and the Archduchess of Austria at 23 years old. Fredrick the Great, ruler of Prussia, was her fierce adversary.

I’m riveted to Nancy Goldstone’s book, In the Shadow of the Empress. It has taught me more about the players in the history of that period than any schoolroom class ever did.

The story causes me to reflect back on who I was at 23 years old. It’s an embarrassing journey. At that age, I was no more capable of ruling a vast kingdom than I was of making good decisions for my own life.

The painful years of early adulthood bled over into my 30s and 40s until I finally refused to do it that way anymore. At 42, I took control, sent myself back to college, and finished a Bachelor-of-Science degree.

That was a major turning point. I gained confidence, self-respect, and a path to financial independence.

In Paul McCartney’s hit song, Yesterday, he acknowledges that his troubles seemed so far away. In the second verse, he admits that yesterday came suddenly, and in the third, he longs for yesterday. The song culminates as he needs a place to hide away. That place, of course, is yesterday. There was a soul stuck in the past.

It’s easy, as I age, to lose myself in remembering. I mean, after 74 years, there’s a lot of water under the bridge. Oceans, in fact. There was much turbulence, and at times, I nearly drowned. But I recall best the stretches of fair winds and blue skies. Joyous days. Epic adventures. Love and belonging.

The challenge now is to keep the story moving forward, to continue to dream and believe those dreams into being. The vision has to be big enough and juicy enough to excite me, like building my house did, because, frankly, there’s not enough energy for smallness.

Without a dream, I’m caught in saṃsāra, the five realms of hell the soul travels through after death. I could be a happy Buddhist if it weren’t for the final scenario of that belief system!

So…

It’s time for a new plan, a project. I have no clarity as to what that looks like, but I’m leaning toward adventure. However, I do know with certainty that I’m nowhere near ready to dwell in the past, no matter how glorious. Yesterdays belong to yesterday.