My parent's house was recently robbed. I'm unsure how passive to make that sentence; should I instead say that my father was robbed? That he and I were? I think it's most appropriate to say that the house itself was robbed—that the casualty is ultimately a sense of home and safety. Dad is, understandably, rattled and having to go through all the process of protecting his identity (they stole a load of paperwork). Unfortunately, they also stole my mother's jewellery, grandfather's watch, and other sentimental items. 

Bizarrely, and tragically for me, they took the past two decades of my personal letters and journals (I had them in 'valuable looking stuff' fire-safes in my room). This is, I'm assuming, the kind of material they would immediately dump; it's probably lost forever. This was, initially, extremely upsetting; I don't have a lot of close connections with people but the letters we've exchanged are tangible manifestation of this. The journals document the passing from one stage to another in my life; perhaps not of great significance to anyone else, but important to me in retrospect. 

However, as I reflect upon the whole incident, it's rather freeing. As I noted in a previous post, I'm attempting to look a bit deeper into my shadow side—my past, maturation (and sometimes lack of). I have a certain narrative built around who I am and want to be; that's framed by what's written. Journals aren't the most objective records of such. Letters to and from only reflect glimpses into the past and can't offer any perspective into the present that's come to be years hence. If that crutch is removed, I'm forced to hold a light to now and look into the shadow of now without explanation or excuse. That kind of examination isn't bound by the weight or hopes of the past. I am not the man whom I expected to be when those words were made; nor am I making the man reflected in those words. In many ways, the words from our past no longer exist as a record of reality either then or now. The more we hold onto them, the less we can 'become into' now and the future. 

Regardless, it does speak to the transience and tenuousness of our ephemera. I had slips of paper stored away in locked boxes; that's only a reminder of people and experience. Perhaps, it calls on me to re-consider the now of those people as much as the now of my experience rather than hold to the past and what was—or what I thought might be.