Remembering Back

Sometimes you just can't ignore that little nudge that says, "Go back - just do it," so you look for ways to make it happen.

Just sitting still and thinking, remembering when you were young, when it all started for you, is about the best way I know to activate what the nudge is telling you to do.

Then you make the contacts, relatives and old friends, asking them questions about the past, stirring up their childhoods right along with your own.

And then come all the answers that fill in the blanks of your life, the blanks you never even knew were there.

And things begin to fall into place and start to make sense.

It's like a mosaic that's never been completed, a piece of art that has sat gathering webs and dust and neglect in a barn somewhere. The pieces of someone else's memories, given to you, begin to rebuild the mosaic, even moving a few pieces around for you that never belonged where they were, because the whole truth had not been revealed, until now.

And suddenly, there it is.

It may be ugly to look at or at least have ugly bits marring the overall beauty, but you know you'd never change one color of it, because it was meant to be.

Most of those memories might never make you happy, but they'll make you complete.

And that must be what the nudge was all about, what the nudge knew you needed, before you reach the end of your rainbow.