Have you ever been somewhere you felt connected to?
(Chateauguay, Quebec)
As you see there are four connectors within the train bridge. It symbolized four major chapters.
The past, the present, the future, and the end.
The first time I found this bridge was twenty years ago.
Feels like it was yesterday. It was a time I needed somewhere to call my own, when my life was destined for a new path. An unexpected move back to my home town. A move I had made so many times before, but this time was different. I had lost a significant part of my childhood. Yet a new chapter was about to begin.
The second time I was there was fourteen years ago.
A time where I needed to feel the comfort this place had always brought me. Only this may be the last time I was going be able to go there. At least that is what I thought at the time.
This was the second time in my life that I had lost something significant. It was time I closed that chapter in my life. As I said goodbye to my hometown and moved hours away, to begin new chapter.
The Third time I was there was ten years ago.
I had made a trip back to my home town. My childhood best friend was moving across the street from "my place of sanctuary".
I finally had the opportunity to take a photograph that became my favorite still to this day. I took a moment remembering the loss over the years and at the time mourning a loss personally. Being there allowed me to feel at peace and move forward.
(Chateauguay, Quebec)
The Final Time I was there would mark twenty years.
This time also marked the final time. It was not until the last time I was there that I truly understood the connection. Each of the connectors in the bridge had such a significant meaning. They had represented for so long something or someone I had lost. It had always seemed to be the place I went when chapters were beginning and ending.
After all this time it never occurred to me I was holding on to a place because I could not seem to let go of the past. Looking back at the photograph and seeing how furthest away has the most blurred effect, symbolizing that time moves deep into the past that it becomes blurry in the future.
As we progress through the connection they begin to fade more and more as we reach the present.
The past does not define us.
The final connector is the end. Which symbolizes closing the final chapter of "my place of sanctuary". As I move forward along my path, it closed the chapters which caused the most pain to allow time to heal and move past. If we continue to return to these places we are only digging deeper into the emotional trauma in our lives. Allowing ourselves to feel those same emotions again.
Every experience we face has a lesson to be learned and something new we can take away. Although we may not understand or have the answers we hoped for, we have to keep moving forward. Our past is a part of us but is not who we are.
It does not define us.
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