Reverb10 day 17

Prompt: Lesson learned. What was the best thing you learned about yourself
this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?

So far the best thing I have learned about myself this year is that *I* own my own past.  Nobody can tell me what I can or cannot say about who I am, what I've done, who I've loved.   That may seem very basic to some of you, but to me it was huge.

I had a friend who wanted me to keep quiet about our relationship because of things that were going on in his life.  When those things ended for him I thought it should be OK to be open about our relationship.  He did not and he pressured me to be quiet - as though he owned my past and had the right to say what I could and could not do with my mementos and memorabilia.  Oh what an enormous blast of light I got when I heard myself exclaim "You don't own my past - I DO!"

So now he is part of my past, and as I go forward now and in to 2011, I intend to hang on to that blast of light and search out any other things I have been giving away that actually belong only to ME!