“The past beats inside me like a second heart.” ~ John Banville

Lately I’ve been thinking about my life before being diagnosed. I try not to do it but it seems to periodically pop into my mind.

Reminiscing is not a bad thing. And actually sometimes the here and now can be so hard that past memories are a great escape.

But my downfall is when my thoughts dwell in the past. I get stuck and fixated on how my life used to be.

It’s like I’m chasing ghost. Haunted by a reality that has long deserted me. Continually searching for a person who has disappeared. But now I have to learn to love my current self. And that’s hard when my body is constantly letting me down. How can I love that?

When I look in the mirror I see my real life. Not the one I created in my head. My mind remembers the old me but my eyes see the new me. I don’t want to admit it but the life I left behind is still the one I want now. Sometimes I spend all day trying to get back to it.

But I’m growing tired of living in the past. Always yearning for the good old days. Craving history instead of making it. I’ve done it so much, I get lost in my dreams. Spending all my free time trying to reach an improbable normalcy. It’s all I think about. And before I know it, I’m no longer living.

I’m just wishing my existence away. Sitting on the passenger side watching my life pass me by. Daydreaming about what was, instead of what is. Battling to keep my sanity as my sweetness for living is slowly being replaced with bitterness and resentment.

So as I continue to slowly sink into uncertainty, I look for remains among the ruins by diving head first into my past. Trying to retrieve what was stolen. Searching for anything that was once mine. Being haunted by the spirits of hopefulness as I attempt to ignore the fiend that lives inside of me. Screaming at the ghost. Telling them to stop haunting me, while struggling to focus on making new memories. And convincing myself, there will be better days. But my life will never get better until I learn how to stop chasing the ghost of my past.