How many of us carry the weight of the past along with us, every day, shadowing ourselves with the people from our past, dragging all the stories (good, bad, and indifferent) right into the next and newest chapter in our lives? Are we even consciously aware of doing it? Do we see the baggage? Do we recognize it? Do we know the ghosts are there with us? That we brought them into the room ourselves? Do we notice the ghosts that our current lovers, and friends, bring along, too?

“He would stare at empty chairs,
think of the ghosts that once sat there,
the ghosts who broke his heart.”

“Ghosts” by Laura Marling
from the album, Alas I Cannot Swim (2008)
Song Of The Day – February 8, 2011

Sometimes our ghosts are unspoken regret. Other times they are longing. And them sometimes they are simply (or not so simply) that marks and scars left from all those unanswered “what if’s.” Often the incarnations of these “spirits” dress-up as expectation or assumption – that ever dangerous combination that often comes around in the middle of the night, when all is quiet and still. Those dual (and sometimes dueling) ghost fighters – expectation vs. assumption – creep in and tangle themselves up inside our over-thinking psyche, and soon after FEAR shows up.

When I’m strong enough I tell them all to fuck off and go away. I ignore their distorted shadows and images, their perspective-blurred memories. It’s then that I wipe my eyes clear, remembering that every day and every person is different.

I try to remember that sometimes it’s just the ghosts of those that broke my hearts before we met the people in my life now. That they are just pulling on me, trying to distract me. Trying to get my attention. Jangling up my fears, and insecurities. But, we have have the power – I have the power – to make them go away.

Play this song loudly and sing-a-long whenever you see your ghosts, and want them to go away.