Remembering the past

I really try not to do this but every now and then I do look back at my old life. I think a lot of the time I do this subconsciously but I don’t think that this is a bad thing for me to do. When I say that I remember the past I am talking about my life before I had my brain injury. I used to look back and miss the past but I think now that I am finally accepting what has happened, I am just remembering how life used to be. I had a feeling that I didn’t really want to remember as it would make me sad. I think the problem before that was when I would remember things they were things that I couldn’t do anymore and it was hard to think about them. But now I often remember doing things whilst I am doing them. For some reason when I am at work and using a computer I always have a memory of when I first came out of hospital and my family had found a keyboard to help in my recovery. I learnt how to touch type whilst at school at it confused me a lot as for some reason unknown to me at the time I just couldn’t do it anymore. I can type away now, I am not as fast but I can do it. Perhaps that is why I think about it all the time. The other day I was driving home from the shops and I thought to myself that this could or been me four years ago. I didn’t have to wait for someone to take me to the shops or wait for a bus to come. Driving was one of my big achievements last year but there were also little things. One thing that I would always remember was making my own bread every week which I loved to do. I cooked it from memory and of course after my brain injury I just couldn’t remember the recipe and it would make me sad to think about it. I had several attempts that didn’t work out but last year I found the recipe and I am making it again and it tastes really good. Everything that I was doing was ‘normal’ again. I guess remembering the past was just so hard for me to do. I do know that I am probably not going to fully embrace my past as there are so many things that I loved that I just can’t have again. My sister says that we shouldn’t look at the past as there is nothing we can do about it or change it, which I suppose is true. I don’t feel sad when I think about most things in the past now as I need to think that I have gone such a long way. My Mum often tells me that I have made such good progress but like I have seen in a previous post it is hard for me to see that as I can’t remember. I do think now though that there is no point dwelling on the past too much as I need to look forward. I need to try to think of new things that will make my life just as enjoyable as it was before and even better. To put it bluntly, after looking death in the face you really need to take everyday and live it to the fullest. When I remember the past I also think that I just didn’t know what was going to happen but I think this will be in a future blog post!