I Don’t Live There Anymore

Have you ever taken a trip down memory lane by driving back to the old neighborhood where you once lived?

Unless one lived a privileged life, more often than not the years have taken a toll. Chic may now be shabby. What was once freshly painted may now be peeling. Tidy landscaping may look like a jungle. The old apartment building may have been razed and replaced with a chain grocery store. It just never quite looks the same, does it?

If you think about it, it’s amazing how the four walls of places once occupied contain our life story. On such a drive-by, though, one thing is evident – you don’t live there anymore. You live someplace else. Sometimes life is that literal.

As individuals in transition (changing, growing, becoming), being able to look back on one’s life and say in all honesty ‘I don’t live there anymore’ is one important key in living life forward. Since I could write a book on this point, let’s just say this post will be nowhere exhaustive commentary on the subject. For the sake of brevity, let’s idle our engine at just a couple of stop signs …

Blast from the Past – This one sometimes sparks my plugs. How is it that when you run into someone who knew you thirty years ago, they still think you’re the same person they knew thirty years ago? I know, right?

I also know we often have short memories even though we’re long on life. It’s the old brain trick of placing someone smack dab in the middle of the circumstances we knew when we last left them. But, it raises an opportunity for some honest reflection: What has changed?

Aside from the logistics of life such as where you live, work, worship, shop, dine, recreate…in what ways can you honestly state, ‘I don’t live there anymore’? Here are a few kick-starts:

Do you still hang with the old crowd whose influence is not so good or godly, or have you ‘moved’ on?

Do you still wrestle with the same ‘junk mail’ delivery your heart has read and heard most of your life?

Do you still view life through the past’s old, scratchy lenses or has your outlook been wisely sharpened?

Have you allowed hardship, trials, tests and sorrows to plant you deeper and grow you higher, or does fear and worry continue its claim on your mind?

Have joys and successes been stepping stones not only for yourself but also for the good of others?

When you consider who you were thirty (or five or ten, or forty or fifty) years ago, are you able to honestly disagree within when someone mistakes you for the same person they knew back when?

Can you say, mean, and know in and of yourself that ‘I don’t live there anymore’?

We could go on, but these are some good dipstick checks for examining the state of what’s oiling our lives and deciding it’s time for an oil change.

After all, how can we freely and truly say, ‘I don’t live there anymore!’ if we’re still sitting in the gunk?

At the Corner of Now & Future – Since your vehicle of life has been transporting you all along, right up to this present time, how would you rate where you currently find yourself living?

1. The intersection of Learning Lane and Cruising Court
2. Shifting Gears Boulevard
3. Stuck in First Gear Roundabout
4. Out of Gas Beltway
5. Flat Tire Freeway
6. Tow Truck Trail

Rather than cause for discouragement, any one or more of these ‘living quarters’ has within it the seed for living life forward in such a way that you may one day confidently declare, ‘I don’t live there anymore.’

The important thing to remember when cruising down memory lane and around the old neighborhood is that yes, you relocated and moved your physical belongings. Did you also remember to change your internal address?

Whether you need help with changing a flat tire attitude; getting over being stuck in first gear and barely creeping forward; or becoming more practiced at shifting gears as life comes at you – you need not feel alone and stranded on the side of the road. There is help for that – emotionally, mentally, spiritually.

You can reserve some shop time here.

~ Nancy

photo credit: 20060714_mg_2888.jpg via photopin (license)