Books

Going through the boxes of books that I've collected over the years certainly has brought back some memories. Finding my textbooks gave me a real trip back in time. One of the books was used in my hardest class that I recall. It dealt with wave propagation and the pages were filled with formulas, integrals and all other kinds of nonsense that I couldn't understand now if my life depended on it. I remember having to picture so many things in my imagination, to understand how electrons and field moved through space...There's a meme that I find on the internet every once in a while about a sunset. What the world sees, a beautiful sunset. What a scientist sees, and the picture is transformed into formulas and vectors. That really was how I pictured a lot of the world and, to be honest, still do.

I also found the textbook of my systems class. It was the worst class I had in my program. It was frustratingly hard, almost futile. It was only salvaged by a gracious curve and one of the other engineers having programmed something in his HP calculator and freely shared it to everyone in the class. That program saved my grade in that class.

Going through other books brought even more introspection, something I'm already prone to do. Let's take a journey into my brain for a bit, shall we?

Wow. I certainly did read a lot about this. I didn't realize how much of this I had.
You wanted to figure it out. There's nothing wrong with trying to figure it out.
Of course not, but I spent so much time, so much effort into trying to make it work.
You wanted forgiveness and acceptance. Most people do. This was how you did it.
Hmmm. Look at this one. My brother gave me these books. I wanted to read so much. It was a new way of thinking and I tried so hard to understand this one. My life would have been different if I actually took my issues to a different conclusion.
You wanted acceptance. You gave up your doubts for that. 
I know. I know. Still, it would have saved me a lot of pain and grief later on if I had just listened to my doubts. There's nothing wrong with doubt. I just crushed it at the time. It was easier to go along.
Do you really wish you didn't make the decision you made back then? Your life would have been very, very different. Do you regret everything?
No, of course not. It took me on a path that let me meet the greatest people I have ever known. I wouldn't have traded that for anything. Yeah, it all didn't go as I planned but I love those people. I don't think they even know how much I love them, and how glad I am that they are in my life. Why all the apologetics anyway? You regret something in your life and people get all stressed that you'll throw away all the good with the bad. It doesn't work that way.
Isn't it natural for people to think that? You are rejecting something very fundamental to who you were, who they are. They would naturally assume you regret them too.
Nope. Some things are big, yes. Some things I'll gladly toss. I don't reject the people along the way. It was my life, it IS my life. I could easily have done without the depression, the guilt and all the problems it created, but that isn't the fault of the people along the way.
So do we keep this book as some sort of lesson?
No. God no. And that book there. That goes. That book should burn for eternity for what it did to me. Nothing, nothing at all redeeming in how that book made me feel. I sometimes feel ashamed because they honor this man so. I did. I did a lot of things I just don't understand anymore. I believed a lot of things that I can no longer fathom.
People change. You've changed a lot these past few years.
Hopefully, for the better. I've always wanted to be a good person. I'm sad that that desire was used against me for so long. Over 30 years. It was only when I saw what it was doing to my kids, how my rationalizations didn't work for them.....I didn't want to put them through the mental gymnastics that I had gone through. I want them to be their own people, find their own path, not mine.
No, this book has to go.
My life is my own. This is the next step in letting go, starting over. It is time to move on. I hope my friends can still accept me, but I have to clear my life of this clutter. I've carried it for far too long. I can't make the journey up the mountain with this dragging behind me.
Hey, look at this....