Picture all your past relationships, now lifeless forms, hanging on hooks in a closet.  The closet goes with you wherever you go.

The relationships are part of you – they have made up your experience – but you are no longer part of them.  Although you carry them with you, you can no longer breathe life into them. They are your past.

You can open the closet door and look at the array.  But, if you take them out and try to carry them around, they are a heavy and unnecessary burden.

Bits and pieces are pinned on these hanging forms as progress is made through forgiveness.  And, it is possible that you may meet again in the present, but it will always be a new relationship.

You travel with your closet, filling it more and more each day.  But it is carried for you.  There is no need for you to put it on your back.

You cannot lose it because it is the summation of who you are.  But it no longer applies to your present except as experience and learning.

These are the records of your life and of your heart.  It is up to you to decide to keep the door closed, or to live within the boundaries of a closet.

We can’t put the past on rewind.  The buttons are stuck.  The actors have gone on to other roles. The set has been dismantled.  The movie is over.

Both sections of “The Past” are excerpts from Love Waits On Welcome … and other miracles by Corinne Edwards