#reverb16 // October // Ghosts

Sarah, Meredith, Kat and I are continuing the #reverb challenge right through 2016 with monthly prompts- turning to daily in December! You can join in anytime by signing up here. Use the #reverb16 hashtag when posting on social media so we can find you! Also, have you joined our Facebook group?!

Ghosts of October's Past | The trees are dying and so are you. We want to know what you plan to do with your remaining years. In the alternative, tell us about your favorite dead relative.

I don't have a lot of relatives, dead or alive. That's silly right? Everyone has a ton of dead relatives- you kind of have to in order to have come into existence. But my genealogy and extended family tree were never something that concerned my parents and therefore also not a huge part of my life. I have no idea who those people were. Or ARE. I don't plan to use my remaining years finding out either.

A good brit friend of mine calls me billy no mates. So true.

My parents raised me with a certain stoic attitude towards family. My mother had no qualms dismissing people from her life- no matter their intrinsic significance. So, during my childhood, I had relatives that would just disappear from my life. They would become dead to her, and so to me unknowingly. And so, I have lived in the shadow of ghosts my whole life - more of them living than dead.

This upbringing worked to my advantage later on when they turned their backs on me and my brother. It has helped me be OK. They are living ghosts to me... still there, but in the shadows of my thoughts, tucked away in the memories of the life I had with them in it.

I don't believe in real ghosts- the breaths of former beings that follow the still living ones around. But, I do feel the significance of people who are no longer with us in the path their lives took, the decisions they made, and the influence of their attitudes and personalities which impact who WE are every day. The bad ghosts keep you firmly rooted in behaviors that don't serve you; the good ghosts enlighten you to a better path so history does not repeat itself.

To me there are no bad ghosts- not even my parents. They have shown me all of the ways I want to be different. I will spend my remaining years following a path that will positively impact as many living futures as I can possibly touch. My living relatives will be the ones that I choose. And at some unknown point in the hopefully very distant future, I will leave this great life with a legacy I can be proud of.

#reverb16 #Reflect