BACK TO THE START

"Let's go back to the start," we said. "Where it all began and let's start over..."

and so we tried. But, it never quite worked.

I think that's where we messed up -- by trying to go back to the start.  Because you can't do that, not really. You change, they change, we change. And going back to the start is trying to go back to fixing something with people who don't even exist anymore. You can't build a relationship on ghosts.

What you can do is start again, but where you are. But, it's not going back to the beginning. You have to deal with what's come between the start and the now.  You can agree to forgive each other, and that can be a part of the dealing and the healing. But, you can't go back and pretend that those things didn't happen, and you can't pretend that those things didn't mean something.

Because they did... if they didn't, you wouldn't need to start over and you would have no reason to even want to go back to the beginning.  They meant something.  And because they meant something, they matter and you can't just ignore them and hope they'll go away. They mattered and we need to respect that.

But, just because you can't go back to the beginning doesn't mean that you can't still have something beautiful. It might be work for a little bit...  but beauty is not easily achieved.  But, when you get there, it is sweet and it is beautiful and it is worth it.