REVISING (MY OWN) HISTORY
Whenever I start a new class for my graduate program, I find myself explaining that I don’t want to get licensed, and I’m just getting my Master’s in Psychology to supplement and legitimize my writing in the mental health space. The most recent time this happened was during a breakout group and one of my classmates was blown away by my decision to go back to school just to help my writing. When she first said this, I thought, “Wow, I guess that is pretty cool. Way to go me!” Then I remembered that while those reasons are true for me now, when I first started the program I one hundred percent intended to get licensed and thought being a therapist would be my backup career. I changed my mind only after learning about the paperwork and liability involved in being a practicing clinician. I also got enough career opportunities to make me feel safe enough not having a strong Plan B in my back pocket. I have no idea if I would have gone back to school knowing from the start that I wouldn’t get licensed. But it’s been shockingly easy for me to rewrite the narrative of my own life without even noticing I was doing so.
This exchange made me think about how often we apply revisionist history to our own lives. As someone who compulsively worries about misrepresenting myself, I thought I would be safe from the allure of rewriting my own history with the gift of hindsight, but now I’m not so sure. Framing my decision to go to school as a choice to simply supplement my writing allows me to be proud of myself for taking this subject matter seriously enough to go above and beyond what many other writers do. (Huge disclaimer: this choice was made much easier by the fact that my parents are paying for it and I’m not taking on massive amounts of debt.) But when I consider what actually happened, it’s easier for me to feel like I took the “easy “way out by not only not getting licensed but also switching degrees so I no longer have to get clinical hours in order to graduate. When you look at it this way, it’s pretty obvious why the appeal of rewriting history is so strong.
As someone who historically values the “truth” (perhaps to an unrealistic and maladaptive degree), I struggle with recognizing this impulse in myself. I even have a distinct memory of standing in my parents’ shower in the winter of 2020 warning myself to not rewrite my love story with my ex-fiancé. I reminded myself that I was very happy and fulfilled in that relationship and it would be a lie to one day say that I was better off or happier with someone else. But as my relationship with John has settled into my favorite phase so far, I have struggled to uphold my promise to myself. Is it possible that I am happier now than I ever was with my ex? Or is that just a convenient narrative to fall into? Would it be a betrayal to the “truth” to declare I’m glad my engagement ended so I could get to my current life?
What I’m realizing as I reexamine the morality of rewriting history is that these two examples are different in important ways. Rewriting my decision to go back to school is a rejection of facts. I didn’t go back just to supplement my writing, and to pretend I did ignores the process of what got me to where I am and also spins me in a positive light I don’t think I deserve. I think this type of rewriting is harmful and allows for people to ignore their privilege and judge other people for not having the same journey—even though they didn’t actually have that journey either! It makes me think of people who get jobs out of sheer luck and then remember it as something they “earned.” I don’t like this type of rewriting and will do my best to avoid it in the future, both in the way I talk to other people and how I talk to myself.
Rewriting my romantic history, however, is more nebulous because things like “happy” are hard to quantify. When you add in the fact that I am a different person now than I was with my ex, we suddenly have two things that are impossible to compare fairly. So instead of expecting me to clearly state one version of my life is better or as good as another version, I’ve decided to release myself from that pressure. I don’t need to proclaim that my current life is better (or worse) than what could have been. I don’t need to rewrite my engagement as something bad and doomed because it would be satisfying to do so knowing how it turned out. It is simply something that happened and then I moved on. It doesn’t feel right, at this moment in time, for me to assign it more meaning than that.
Hindsight is 20/20, but the pull of pretending we had that hindsight all along can be stronger than the gravitational force of the sun. One thing that helps me resist the temptation is remembering it’s natural to make mistakes and change your mind. I didn’t need to know from the start that I would end up with a different partner and a different career goal in order to feel confident in my current choices. It is okay that there were bumps and turns along the way and it is through remembering instead of erasing those bumps and turns that I can more fully appreciate my destination.
xoxo,
Allison