The Experiences We Have Ignored

Today an experience I had when I was 15 years old re-visited me out of the blue. It was a good experience, one which I had ignored completely because I didn’t think my feelings were valid. I fancied a guy that was two years younger than me. I wouldn’t admit it to anyone, least of all to myself. First of all I thought it was completely silly for a girl my age to like someone who was two years younger. Secondly I didn’t think he would be interested in me, even if he had been my age. I secretly enjoyed admiring him from a distance even though we didn’t talk much.

Remembering this, I thought about other meaningful experiences I had ignored. A few of them were when I was in nature and felt a presence I couldn’t quite fathom. My imagination would run away with me whilst I thought that the rocks, the blue sky, the dunes themselves were alive. I couldn’t put my perception into words. Since it didn’t fit any of the boxes of meaning I had been taught, I discarded it us unreal or unimportant. The real world was out there where people strived for success and lived normal lives with normal jobs and families.

The experiences I have ignored were the moments when my soul was talking to me. I thought that as I grew up, life would become easier and I would learn to fit into the world better. Once I mastered my unruly ways and emotional impulses, I would have a stronger presence in the world. Needless to say, at the times when I thought I did a good job of assuming the persona I thought was required to be taken seriously, I was more depressed than the times when I couldn’t control my tendencies to be a misfit.

These forgotten experiences don’t go lost. They come back to remind us that whilst we failed to acknowledge them when we were there, the magic stays with us. The best moments come from nowhere – they aren’t staged or created. The beauty of magic is that it wants to find us, regardless of how hard life could be. Looking back, it is the good moments that we remember and the really unimportant ones that we forget. Love flows more freely through things that are flawed than through things that are perfect.