You know I have always been a big proponent of not looking back to grab your future partner. I’ve argued for years that it is much harder in reality to be with someone from your past, than it is to start fresh with someone new and unknown. I argue this position for a number of reasons and I will break down why I feel this should almost always be the case. Why there are always exceptions and how to know when something is a chapter closer and not a chapter starter. If you’re not careful, a reunion with a lost flame could prove to be costly or harmful to your progress in the present day.

As has been commonly said, looking behind you doesn’t really do you any real justice. It doesn’t help you to see what’s happening in present day and it doesn’t do a lot to prepare you for what’s to come in the future. Looking back, in my mind, is used to teach us lessons and to help grow us from what we were and used to be into who we are and will ultimately become. It gives you a memory of experience to draw off of should you encounter a similar situation down the line, ensuring that you will be able to use more tools to better handle the situation should it present itself again. It works for reminding you of why you left someone alone, or why something didn’t work in the time period that it did. It serves to be a hallmark of where that past person must climb to just to be considered fairly relevant. But that’s where the problem comes in at. Too many times they reach the old bar, but you’ve graduated to an even higher bar that they must over come, and most people forget that when that past comes roaring back to the forefront.

Lately, I’ve felt like I’ve been having a lot of reunions with my past and I’m really not sure why this season has been presented to me over the past eight months. But, it has definitely served to do some of the work I believe it was intended to do. It also caused some deep wounds and pain that I’ve been working through. Well, add two more people to the list of the returned and one blew up in a ball of fire less than a week after it got going. I’m glad that I have the ability to know what the past is primarily used for. Also, I’m glad that I have an understanding that not everything is black and white. There is a lot of color and gray area where we have to make decisions and be prepared for the consequences of those decisions. This guy from a few years ago, came back around to me again this time and I really thought that this was going to be something worth investing my time into. He was someone that we didn’t end on bad terms, we both just needed so much and neither of us were really ready to give each other what we needed. So we left things alone and life moved on.

Last week we reconnected, and for the most part, it was just like old times. Catching up, revealing feelings hidden and things sought and wanted from the other. So we began to talk heavy discussing whether or not we were going to finish the work we started years ago. I agreed and so did he, that we would attempt to make this work in the improved versions and forms of ourselves, than 3 years ago. Before that opportunity could even be tried out, he pulled the fag move. Got to the city and disappeared. Not talking any longer, not answering phone calls or returning missed calls. It showed me that he was meant to close a chapter. His bluster and bullshit, while sounding good, was nothing more than a time filler. Wasting my time and energy and his, because I guess he was bored. Or maybe he wanted a backup plan, while I was thinking I was primary, because he claimed he was spending his time talking to me. Which, from all accounts has proven to be false, cuz I haven’t seen the bitch since he arrived in town. It reminded me that just like all the others who have returned, these are chapters mostly closing and not new ones being written.

It reminds me that the truth is you only go back for one you believe is the one. A soulmate that you know fits you perfectly. That no matter how many years pass or how much time goes without you two being together as lovers or in each others presence, you still have a bond that is unmatched. It needs time to recalibrate to account for the changes that both of you have made. And then you write a new chapter, aiming to see if this is something that needs to be further developed, or is it a new chapter to close the prior partnership, opening a new friendship while closing the relationship portion of life together. That is a hard thing to decide that you need to do, but it becomes the right choice if it becomes obvious that only one of you is still into it and the other is just living their best life. See, you have to be prepared in great detail for all options to happen with people that you reconnect with. You have to be very careful to protect you energy and time. You don’t want to extend yourself for something that is really dead and trying to be reincarnated into something different.

I really don’t feel that there are any other real reasons to examine a past love for reignition. Don’t buy into the I still want to love you. Or the lets try this again and make it work. Or the you’re stuck with me now. None of that bullshit is true if you don’t see the actions matching those words. Don’t cancel plans that you made or adjust the way that you move until you are sure that the person is serious. That you two are really building towards something special. If this isn’t happening, then you’re just writing final chapters for people. And to be honest, you need that in life. Closure! A word that many say they want but when they’re given the opportunity to take it, they run from it. Because it means letting go and moving on and so many people want to hang on to things. Wanting to use what is familiar and comfortable as a basis for their new happiness. When in reality, it’s when you go outside what you know that you grow the most and usually experience the success as well.

So here is the summation. Don’t let yesterday become today unless yesterday and done all the work to become the present and future. Not just catching up to what was. And don’t let sweet words and matching rhetoric equate to love matching and compatibility, because you never know the reason for the season. Take your time, flush it out and when it’s time, write the final sentence and close that chapter. Move On and be happy.