Ghosts of Our Past Selves

On Saturday, I visited my old San Francisco neighborhood for the first time in years. It was weird to compare what it used to look like to what it looks like now. It was also strange to be there and remember the person I used to be. My friends asked me if I missed living in the city, and the truthful answer is no.

It’s funny because in 2012, when I began my period of moving on average every three months for three years, I cried buckets over no longer being in SF. It was a heartbreak on par with a breakup. I’d spent ages longing to move to San Francisco, dreaming about it, imagining what my life would be like, and then when I arrived, it was the culmination of a dream. I loved being in the city. I loved the convenience, the ease, the energy. I woke up every day grateful I lived in San Francisco.

And then, the universe basically forcibly removed me. My dream became a nightmare. My building put up scaffolding to paint the exterior, and I kept telling management I was worried someone would break in. And guess what? They did! Not to my apartment, but still. And then, because of the paint job, my windows were covered so I couldn’t even see outside, and barely had any sunlight. Add in not sleeping through the night, and it was truly a waking nightmare.

I left SF, but I wasn’t happy about it. I wrote poems about it, longed for the life I had, but kept moving forward. And now, I’m so changed that whenever I return to my old neighborhood, it’s like those feelings, that life, belonged to someone else. It’s like I’m confronting the ghost of my past self. That makes sense given what my spiritual teacher has to say about death and change.

He says, “A 5-year-old child is transformed in due course into a 15-year-old boy. In 10 years, the child becomes the boy. Thereafter, you will never be able to find the body of the 5-year-old child. So the child’s body has certainly died.” He then goes on to mention the boy growing into a man, and then hitting middle age, then old age, until he finally dies and says, “The rest of the changes we do not call death; but in fact, all the changes qualify as death.”

All the changes qualify as death because the person who used to exist cannot be found anymore. That’s me. I have died many times and will do so again. And it’s true for all of us. We’re constantly undergoing a metamorphosis. We’re constantly dying and being reborn. We all have many “ghosts” walking around. The people we used to be, and aren’t any longer.

Normally, I’d feel sad or tender about that, but it can also be something wistful or neutral. I have gratitude and appreciation for my past self, for the young woman who so desperately wanted to move to San Francisco and did. But I’m not that person anymore. These days, I have new dreams, new desires, and new selves to meet. And I’m sure that one day in the future, I’ll look back and think of this current self as a ghost, too.

I dream of a world where we recognize change is constant, not only in the world but in ourselves. A world where we understand that we will all die many times while we live. A world where we recognize there are many ghosts of our past selves walking around.

Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.