Past, Present, Future Tense-ness
By Fay A.
Most of life’s big questions and decisions tend to revolve around what’s happened in the past, where life finds you in the present, and where you will end up in the future. The reason that these questions are so tricky to deal with is this: Every answer you choose really does have the potential to change the course of your entire future.
As far as relationships go, there is always a connection to the past, present, and future tense. There is an episode of Sex and the City in which Carrie Bradshaw ponders, “At a certain age we have all had relationships that are far from past perfect, but how much does that relationship affect our dream of a future perfect? As we become more tense, we can’t help but wonder, can you get to a future if your past is present?”
Hmmm… very good question indeed.
Is it possible for someone to move into the present (let alone the future), when their past is staring them in the face? When you have not fully let go of something that you once held near and dear to your heart, is it feasible to believe that you can move on to something new? Is it ever possible to truly let go of something that meant that much to you? Are we silly to believe that our pasts can all of a sudden transform into something different and play a completely different role in the present, allowing us to keep them in the picture in our futures and still move on?
Moving on from the past often requires believing in some of the myths and relationship lore that people pass around to their sad and depressed friends. The things that we tell each other so that no one gives up hope; the things that get our pathetic friends back up off the couch and out into the real world. It’s the moving on that is the hard part. But even once you do put in the time and the tears, you still never really get to walk away from the past. Once you meet someone new and begin a new romance, there is inevitably that moment when everyone is going to have to dig back up the past and talk about it. The time when you have to discuss what went wrong, why it happened, whose fault it was, and what sort of baggage everyone is still carrying around because of it.
There is a definite line in the proverbial sand here. As a bartender out here on the island for years now, I have had a bird’s eye view to many of the relationship hits and misses out on Folly. It makes perfect sense that the only time there is ever weirdness or leftover animosity at the end of a relationship is when it becomes serious. It’s when the deeper feelings become involved that people start having a harder time moving from past to present, and present to future.
I have been impressed with the cool attitude and casual dating style on Folly for years. Many people are able to go out on a few dates, and leave it in the past without baggage if it doesn’t work out. Later on, everyone can see each other out on a Friday night with their new dates, cheers a round of shots to what’s to come in the future and then team up boys against girls for a round of pool on the second floor of the Folly Beach Shrimp Company.
The moral of the story? Everyone has a past. There are very few people in this world who get to fall in love with their high school sweetheart and then live happily ever after with their picket fences and J-Crew catalogue looking family. For the rest of us mere mortals, we have to try people on, make some mistakes, and be the bad guy, so that we learn the bad qualities that exist within us.
It is all of these lessons that eventually allow us to grow and become a person that we love deeply. Without the lessons of the past, we would all be bitchy, selfish complainers who expect love and respect, but who have never really learned how to give it.
I try to look back on the past fondly as the string of circumstances that have made me who I am and have gotten me to where I am. I try to focus on all of the best parts of it and be thankful to have survived and made it to today. Today is pretty damn good considering what it could be, and thanks to all of the things that I have learned, I believe that tomorrow has the potential of being even better.
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