A clean slate?

So long as you have courage and a sense of humor, it is never too late to start life afresh.
 Freeman Dyson

I first read it and I thought yea, start fresh.  Clean the slate.  Make my life be what ever I want it to be.  Then I remembered how many times I have done that.  When I started high school, I decided to start fresh.  I went from a C student to an A student.  When I started college, I started fresh again.  Changed my friends and became very intense engineering student.  When I married, I started fresh again moving from friends and eventually family to grow our own little family.  Each time we moved I felt it was an opportunity to start over fresh.  This is what I learned.  I always take me with me.  No matter where I go there I am with all my baggage.  I still had to deal with me.  Counseling stopped me from looking for a fresh start and turned me around to look at myself and my past.  No wonder I was on the run. 

I don't learn life lessons from theory, I need concrete examples.....I realized that all around me were different lessons.  In grade school, I liked staying after school to help the teacher by cleaning the chalk boards.  I wanted to do a really good job and used water to get all the dust off.  The teacher kindly explained to me that what I did wasn't helpful.  In order for the chalk to work properly, it needed a base of dust.  She taught me to spread chalk all over the board then just erase away the extra.  In college painting class, I learned that before I could paint a picture I needed to cover the canvas with gesso or some other base coat before I could paint.  In building a house, I need a foundation first.  I learned that a clean slate is not helpful.  I also figured out that if I left all those experiences behind I would simply make the same mistakes over again.  Now, I am looking over the mess.  I learned that you never know what is hurtful to someone else, stay aware of other's feelings.  I learned that name calling hurts.  I learned that saying, "I love you" without backing it up with action doesn't mean a whole lot.  I learned that fear can take away the pleasure of living.  I learned many lessons.  If I wash it all away, I just need to learn it again.  I do highly recommend courage and a sense of humor especially when facing yourself.  However, why reinvent the wheel when you already have one.  Learning from my life I can become the person I always dreamed I could be.  I have the raw materials and experiences and determination to start from right here and be the best me possible.

From Mulderfan
"To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."(E.E. Cummings)