“The present changes the past. Looking back you do not find what you left behind.”

Kiran Desai

Everyone has a past, some are "cleaner", less rowdy than others, some managed to stump a few times, others went completely outside the road, but lucky for us, our past doesn't define us, we can change who we are based on it, but that doesn't mean we have to live through it.
I went through a little period when I was starting to work on my anxiety in which I lived merely thought my past, there was nothing new in my life, nothing good to talk about, all memories and nothing else, there was nothing new for me in a long while.
In that time I started to idolise all this characters that were part of my life at some point, like ex boyfriends, or friendships that were no longer good for me and even when I knew how much pain it was causing me I was still there thinking what could have happened if I wouldn't have ditched everything when I did.
This ideas followed me around for a really long time, they haunted my thoughts and dreams, and even for a little period of time I tried to reconnect with some of those past friendships, only to realise that none of us were the same people anymore and that my idea about them was seriously messed up.
Little by little I started to let go of that tormentous past, but there was still one person I needed to really disenchant myself from, a lost love, and I did this past September, I realised that no matter how much chemistry I thought I had with him and how amazing his kisses were, he was still that douche that everyone warned me about.
Surprisingly saying goodbye to him didn't hurt, not even a little, and I'm glad that I can finally say goodbye to those ghosts that haunted me for so long. The lesson? Everything happens for a reason, if something or someone forms part of your past, leave it there, if it's not longer in your life a reason has to be. Leave your past as good memories and nothing else.