Heard It in a Past Life: A Lesson in Letting Go
About the Series: Heard It in a Past Life
Our favorite witchy queen Maggie Rogers sings the haunting phrase of “maybe there’s a past life comin’ out inside of me” to close out her most somber song, “Past Life," of her 2019 debut album. Her somewhat pensive tone encapsulates how many of us feel when looking back on our past lives — regret, sorrow, disappointment, even anger. Yet, Maggie is attempting to make amends with her past selves through this song, even through her whole album that carries a similar theme. How can we reconcile with our pasts and bring them into our present selves, or even into our future selves?
At Camp Thirlby, we not only encourage our readers to reflect on their past lives, similar to what Maggie Rogers does in her moving song, but to delve into those experiences headfirst through their own personal memoir. Our series to ring in the new year, “Heard It in a Past Life,” to cite her album title, does just this — it showcases the ways in which our Camp Counselors have reconciled with their origins and past selves, relating to queerness, mental health, and more, to bring into the here and now, no matter how difficult that may be. Because maybe, our pasts are more present than what we ever once imagined.
I’ve been repeating the closing words of Lucy Dacus’s “Historians” in my head, nonstop, since I saw her perform last December — “If past you were to meet future me, would you be holding me here and now?” Apart from the fact her concert already summoned a heavy dose of nostalgic emotion (it was my third time seeing her and both an old and a current fling happened to be there), these specific lines really hit me in my yearning-for-the-past feels. I couldn’t stop thinking about the situation she sings about: an old flame reaching back out to a new and changed version of myself, wondering if we would be even better the second time around. Yet, her lyrics never allude to the “you” being evolved, leading her to question if that person of her past would be holding her — maybe instead, she’d be falling down the same history of disappointment.
Still, I’m notorious for not knowing how to let go of the past, similar to Dacus contemplating a future that’s tied to a past part of her life. No matter how toxic, I view the people of my past — friends, romantic relationships, even short-term flings — as nostalgic and unresolved bits that hold some sort of tether to whom I used to be, and maybe whom I still want to be. When I think of the people I once deemed to be important to me, my supposed growth from my past seems to dissolve into a confusing mess of regret and yearning, and I’m left wishing for what could’ve been. I keep these people on hold, perhaps for when I want to return to them and try to fix whatever went wrong.
On the opposite end, I’ve also found it very simple to cut people off — to switch from close friends to distant neighbors, from girlfriends to enemies, from casual sex partners to people who don’t even cross each other’s minds. The first step of this, the action, is easy; to reconcile with its past is where it becomes near impossible. I keep putting off this reconciliation, as I fear it will evoke a flurry of emotions I’ve been trying to avoid with my recent breakups and gradual failures of relationships. I feel lost, disappointed, and angry. Sometimes, I’m even at a loss for words when I try to hash out what went wrong; why I stayed in toxic relationships; why I miss people who do not deserve to be missed; and why I let people back into my life who do not deserve to be let back in. Most times, I’d rather forget than delve into these pasts to sit with my discomfort.
I’m trying to find a happy medium of both holding memories of my exes with high caution and also carrying the ability to just let go. I still let exes linger, both in letting them orbit me on social media or simply taking space up in my brain. Or, to avoid this yearning, I try to erase them from my mind, as if it never happened — so much to the point that I don’t even allow myself closure (and therefore fail to learn from my mistakes in this process, and continue to fall for the same kinds of people).
I am currently standing in the middle of these two opposing sides, attempting to understand how I can grapple with these conflicting forces and give myself the closure I deserve — to move on from my past, but also feel at ease when I look back on it. I can be mindful of my past, but only by bringing in the good bits — using the lessons I’ve learned from a past relationship, but leaving out the person who hurt me, no matter how good the good times were.
Speaking on behalf of my past, my pre-therapy self, I was one to stay in relationships that didn’t work for either of us. Neither party was actually satisfied, but I knew I didn’t want to let it go just yet; that maybe I could somehow make her better for me, make me better through her. This longing was sure-fire evidence of incompatibility, yet this inability to work perfectly made me try even harder. And most importantly, it made me terrified of how I would let go if, or rather when, it ended. Not only did I always forgive and make excuses for my partners far too easily (to fit the common occurence that missing red flags in lesbian relationships is very, very real), I typically didn’t move on from exes. I imagined a life of what could’ve been instead of knowing that there were others out there, people and relationships I actually wanted and deserved.
Enter the opposing side. Coming out of these experiences, I attempted to be a person I always dreaded becoming — the “chill girl.” The girl who could easily move on from people she used to hold close to her heart, or even people she had a history with, no matter how casual. Moving on, though, would just mean pretending to be okay with them not apologizing or failing to give me closure while simultaneously letting them favorite my tweets and view my Instagram stories. Being “chill,” though, never meant that I could healthily process a breakup on my own time; it was instead a temporary band-aid for the emotions I so desperately was attempting to block out.
This mindset hit full force after a more recent inexplicable “breakup,” one that left me more confused than ever. I refused to miss her or even attempt to make sense of what had happened — instead, I became “chill.” I pulled her out of my mind, but didn’t unfollow her on social media; I “moved on,” but didn’t get the closure that I deserved. Most of all, I didn’t want to be like my past self — one that would take months, even years, to get over an ex. I instead wanted to be one that welcomed her unsolicited social media interactions because I was so over her! This new me refused to remember how I long for the past and, most importantly, long to know where things went wrong.
I didn’t know what it meant to truly cut off toxic people from my life. I only knew how to be one of two things: stuck in the same nostalgic feelings of lust and love that I had when I was with an ex, or “okay” with people that have failed to treat me with respect by simply erasing those old memories from my mind. Like a clean slate, right? Except there’s no way for my present and future to be freed of my past if I still let exes linger — my attempt of being that chill girl still opens the possibility of letting them back into my life, as I haven’t even had the chance to process what I want through this “easy” fix. I may have cut them off in my mind, but I think I was actually putting our relationship on pause for a chance to redo what went wrong, to maybe give myself the time to reapproach them with a different mindset, with my future (and more knowledgeable) self, as Dacus sings.
It wasn’t until I went back to an ex that sparked my realization of finding this happy medium although, weeks later, I’m not sure if I can say that I’ve mastered this skill just yet. I’m still trying to find words for what happened, for why I thought going back to my past would somehow give me the closure I never received in my “chill girl” method of not processing. It’s like I was revisiting the site of my former trauma, somewhat like repetition compulsion — reliving history by getting back together with someone who hurt me once just to inevitably get hurt again. I wanted to see if maybe I could live in that past with a new mindset — one where I didn’t want anything serious with this person, and even moreso, one where I have gone through hurt and heartbreak enough times to know how to handle these situations better than my old selves. I was, in a way, longing for my past through this person, but at the same time, saw my questionable decision as a sign of growth, that I had control in this situation and was putting the fate of my romantic life in my own hands.
Just because I had grown from my past doesn’t mean that people I go back to have also gone through this transformation. Although I ideally wanted to fix what had previously happened through our second trial, I had been proven wrong after things went awry in an almost identical way as the first time. While part of me deeply regrets my initial decision to see this as a good idea (it’s far more resembling of that girl in red song called “bad idea!”), I also view how I handled things the second time as a sign of progress. My previous “chill girl” attitude went out the window when I did two things I had never done before — unfollow her on all social media and yell at her over text, telling her exactly how I felt while making sure she never came crawling back. For the first time, I felt closure, no matter how hard it was to hit the unfollow button and how shitty I felt for finally ending things on my part. Maybe following this process — truly cutting an ex out of my life and getting the closure I deserve — would be the only way for myself to grow and ease out of my old relationship habits.
This process didn’t have to be simple and, dare I say, chill; it could be angry and unhinged and filled to the brim with emotions. The only way I could move on from a lingering, toxic past was to cut ties and make my anger and feelings known. I was bringing out a past self, one that embraced her at times unpleasant feelings, but holding agency over them to grow to a better future, sans exes.
I still feel a past me coming out when I strangely miss her or any old flames that weren’t necessarily the best to or for me. I think a tiny part of me will always dwell on these pasts, hoping for an alternative universe where things worked out perfectly, where our desires effortlessly matched up and neither of us ended up getting hurt, for past you to be holding future me. I then think: this is human, not a sign of devolution on my part. Yearning for exes is more common for lesbians than our tendency to U-Haul; the small dating pool makes it nearly impossible to not think of an ex because of the scary thought that maybe our future ideal partner simply does not exist.
I have to tell myself that it’s okay to still feel a medley of hurt, rage, confusion, and nostalgia, even after I’ve gone through this process so many times. Breakups and processing past relationships might get easier after some experience, but that doesn’t make anyone a pro in how to handle these emotions. Rather, it gives us the tools to know how to pick ourselves back up, maybe a bit more smoothly, and hopefully with more knowledge and experiences that might prevent the past from happening again. It informs us of the partners we want (and shouldn’t want) and the kinds of relationships we need (or don’t need at all!). I can’t say that I know exactly how to perfectly process just yet, if such a thing even exists, but I do know that I’m beginning to understand how to fit into that happy medium — of letting go of people, but not myself. Of letting go of past you, but holding future me close to my heart.
About the Author
Natalie Geisel (she/her) is a senior at The George Washington University studying women’s, gender, and sexuality studies with minors in English and communication. Her love of writing sprouted from starting her fashion blog in high school, and her current written work focuses on topics of LGBTQ+ content, culture, and identity. Launching and managing Camp Thirlby was out of interest in intersecting gender and sexuality into the world of youth and wellness, hoping to add marginalized voices, like her own queer one, to an underrepresented community. When she’s not writing, she spends her spare time at dance rehearsal, attending local indie shows in the DC area, or finding the best cafes that serve oat milk. She’s passionate about inclusive sex education and sustainable fashion and thinks everyone should be, too. You can view all of her written work on her website.
