Geez, how hard is it to just get rid of people?
I don’t think I’ll ever be able to become what I want without erasing my past and getting people to let go, I just want to be myself.
Your past will always be a part of you, no matter how much you try to deny...
Oh, no, you certainly shouldn’t hold onto the past or grieve over things you can’t change - but neither should you deny that what you’ve done in the past has anything to do with you now. You have to accept it, because you can’t change it. Whether you want “the good times” back, or wish you’d done things differently, it’s just two sides of the same coin. Either way, you haven’t made peace with your past. It’s a foundation for the future - what kind of a house has no foundation? You can’t just rip it all out when you decide you don’t like it.
You won’t make the same mistakes again? Well, that’s why your past is important. It’s what made you who you are. If you’ve decided to change, that’s because of your past, and that decision couldn’t exist independent of what you did and how you felt about the results. I don’t believe people should be held responsible for things that they’ve done in the distant past, as long as they aren’t still doing those same things. What’s done is done, so there’s no point in hiding it or denying it.
I mean, what I’m getting at is, if you were to “erase your past” as you said, then you’d be erasing all of the things that you’ve learned from it. The present and future matter the most, absolutely, but they’re inexplicably inextricably bound to what has come before. Dissatisfaction with the past -> change in the present -> better future. You’re not clinging desperately to the past, you’re bringing it along with you into the future. I think it’s better to go hand in hand, rather than kicking and screaming.
I certainly don’t want to get involved where I’m not wanted, but I used to have plenty of friends who didn’t know me, either. It’s kind of why I started writing about myself here, because I was tired of hiding everything. The people who never really cared will drift away if you let them, but if someone is particularly tenacious, I’d say it’s best just to be honest about it. If they know that you totally do not want them in your life, and continue to insist, that’s harder to deal with. But you’ll never make any progress if you just wait for them to figure it out on their own.
…Because they probably never will.