why are we haunted by other people's ghost?

we all have a closet wherein several suitcases are packed with neat rows of femurs and phalanges, tibias and craniums. some of us keep the baggage on the floor, stacking winter blankets and wool sweaters over the top, hiding it from nosy mothers and unexpected guests. others are obsessed with the luggage, constantly pulling it out and repacking for a trip they will never again take. we know it's one bag (or two or three) that refuses to get lost in the maze of airline connections and airport carousels. but whether by contemplating it or ignoring it, most of us learn to deal with it.

learning to live with our own mistakes and bad memories is not easy, but because it was our own past and that experience is part of our being today, we cope. figuring out how to reconcile our past fuck-ups with the present and also accepting the inevitable fact that we'll find new ways to screw up creating future hardships is, i do believe, "growing up."

so often that phrase suggests the solitary experience of one person and the evolving that person does. rarely does it describe the process of evolving with someone else. in other words, learning to live with the skeletons, ghosts, and haunts of someone else. this process doesn't afford the luxury of rationale. unlike justifying your own past, you can't say well that was really stupid what i did, treating that person wrong. but i learned from it and am a better person as a result. instead it just reveals the other as the flawed individual you knew them to be--a fact you'd been having a fairly successful go at ignoring. and although you have flaws that at least match or even trump the other's, that knowledge doesn't quell the fear that mistakes and transgressions will be repeated. if anything the truth is only magnified--you may very likely have hurt coming in your future. maybe even the making of a brand new suitcase to add to your matching baggage set.

it's unavoidable: in order to have anything real with another person you have to share your pasts, including the uncomfortable, the painful, and the downright ugly. that means living with decisions and consequences that you played no part of and maybe don't even agree with. this sucks. a lot. then suddenly you see two colored pills and a stentorian voice in your head says something about the story ending or seeing how far the rabbit hole goes. and you think goddamn i hated that movie, and now i hate it even more now that i realize there's actual truth in it. 

eventually you catch up on the other person's past, they catch up on yours, you realize what potential the human has for being an asshole, you marvel, you worry, you suspect, you rationalize, you question. then you realize that if you can know and accept this other person's not-so-pretty past and they still look all right then you might just be on to something really worthwhile, and that's probably worth holding on to, skeletons and all.