On the past..

I am reading Waterland and The Heart of Darkness which I should have read a long time ago. I finally finished "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison and when it's very quiet I still think of the words and the lines and what an emotional book it was. Some people are so talented--they can move you and shape you with their words. Anyways, Graham Swift is different. My eyes lull over his words and I feel like i'm not getting it. The story is fractional and jumps over a span between 1940 and 1980. He is a history teacher who is being forced to retire because the world should not dwell on the past but live in the here and now...sad I guess.

The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.

I used to think that was true but now i have my doubts. How much is the past apart of your present? I was reading an article yesterday that talked about how divorce affects children. My father is probably the sorest subject for me, not because I lack any amount of love for him, but perhaps because I love him too much for what he should be instead of what he is to me. It basically said that since my parents were divorced when I was a child, i've never grown up with the idea of what a workable marriage is. I flee rather than fight, the moment things look like they are getting ugly i'm out the door because I don't know how to fight without it being bitter. Hmm..this could be true. One time when I was suffering from lack of sleep and got emotional in highschool I told Erin I get scared that i'll never be married or happy in a relationship because I don't know what THAT is. My parents don't talk to eachother, and my mom still to this day won't tell me the most saddening pieces of the end of their marriage. I don't think I could handle knowing. It's just interesting how we stumble upon the world and fumble about bounding into things like bees, only later to be realize "Oh..this is where that scar or that bruise" comes from. bruise upon bruise.