Letter To My Past

Dear Past,

I hear you knocking on my door, asking me to let you in. I will, as long as you know that you don’t define me. You are an important part of me, but not all of me.

For years, I tried unsuccessfully to forget you. Today, I want you in my life. You’re an old friend, one I could always count on to be there if I needed. You’re dark and sad, but loyal nevertheless. This is why you are getting this letter today.

I want to ask for your forgiveness.

You live in another time. I know that now. It’s not fair for me to keep trying to bring you into the present and blame you for my pain. If I’m in pain, that’s on me, not you. It means I haven’t learned the lessons you’ve tried to teach me.

I’m sorry I blamed you for what was other people’s doing: for the kids in fifth grade who called me names and even broke my head open with rocks, for being sexualized by men in turbans who called me “sinner” for inflaming their desire, for the bombs Iraqi planes dropped on my country.

I thought everything bad that happened was because you were bad, because you were following me everywhere — to America, to the ends of the earth. But it isn’t true. Life can be hard, but you weren’t bad.

I would never want to live without you. How could I live without remembering the days my little sisters were born, the smell of my grandmother’s khoresht-e sabzi (green stew) wafting through the house, and the sound of the prayer-calls in the afternoon. Allah o Akbar. I don’t want you to go. And I don’t need you to. 

Today, I get to make new stories: stories of adventure, connection, and success. And tomorrow those stories will join you, mixing old darkness with new light. You and I will meet, and I will call you by your new name: Bright Past. I am willing to make the effort to see you that way.

Dear past, please take a look at me. Do you see how much I’ve grown?