Did any of me stick at all?…There’s a part of you that stays with me Someone else gets to know Did any of me stick at all?…But I need to know Do you remember who I am?
There aren’t a lot of things I regret, none actually. I am a firm believer in the idea that all my past mistakes have taken me to the place I am and the person I am. I don’t regret who I am and where I am. I am who I am, tomorrow I shall be some one else and I won’t stay the same forever. I don’t regret my mistakes, but some of me wonders about the lyrics above.
As soon as I heard this song on Ingrid Michaelson’s album (my favorite musical artist) I felt something resonate with me. It’s a question and thought that always comes back to me no matter what. I don’t want to open up the conversation or the gate between my past and I, but I do wonder if I made any impression, any mark, any change.
There were a lot of things I did wrong, a lot of ways in which I wasn’t the best, and didn’t know what I wanted. But I know that I feel I have changed a lot, that my past relationship taught me a lot about standing up for myself, taking blame, and being my own person. But I wonder if my past believes that too? That our relationship taught them about blame, consent, manipulation, lies, cheating. I wonder if any of the things that happened stuck. I wonder if any lasting imprint of me remained.
Because isn’t that what we all wonder about our past? If they think about us, if some memory, some glimpse of us remains? I know it’s not that we want some crazy obsessed stalker, but I think all of us, or at least most people I know, wonder about if any of them stuck. When you spend days, months, years with someone, don’t you want to know if that made an impression?
And isn’t there no bigger let down than the illusion that it meant something to someone when they don’t even think twice? (Well maybe there are bigger let downs, I will miss my tea store….) But isn’t it that gut dropping floor collapsing feeling when something you think about the world isn’t true? When you thought someone loved you, when you thought you were in an exclusive relationship, when you thought actions were agreed upon, but you turn a corner and suddenly the tables turn.
I don’t know the answer…obviously, I just know that sometimes I do wonder if any of me stuck at all.