What is Yesterday for? When does Today Begin?

From my journal entry on June 15, 2021 in the big black book.

I wonder, how much of what we do today, what we are doing now and in our everyday lives are unconscious efforts to heal old wounds? At first, this thought makes me balk at it; how pathetic are we that we cannot let go of the past? How unevolved am I that what I do now is all for the reparation of my hurts and pains and my unfulfilled visions of myself, my dreams, my heart's desires? Even when not seeming so, that so many decisions and choices that I make are ever-bound to the immature understanding of a child who came long before who I am today?

But then I look closer and say to myself, but then what else would one do today if not mending yesterday's misunderstandings? How, as a child, was I to know that indeed my parents loved me though they met me with less enthusiasm and joy as they did my siblings? If you see my child self you see her reservations and her, technically speaking, minimal aptitude for being cute. I did not smile as hard, there was less laughter, I was withdrawn and worried that I as myself wasn't as lovable as the dancing sister or the curious brother.

Who encouraged me into that direction? Perhaps first my temperament and perhaps others simply returned my temperament to me. It is difficult for the ordinary person to meet a depressed person with joy, or an angry person with kindness and love, or an ecstatic person with irritation. If one emotion is already established it often influences those surrounding it and to meet it and maintain some other emotion entirely is not an ordinary skill.

And, if the only things of this world that we carry with us after death is our character, experiences, and understanding of the two, then reparation, correction, reconciliation with our understanding of our character and experiences of the past must occur.

If my voice was weak and undefined as a child, is it any wonder that as an adult of 35+ I would focus on developing the voice? That weakness in me? Before that point of strengthening my weakness, I only dreamt I could produce beauty in sound from my own mouth and I was never satisfied. Eventually I concentrated on it, brought it to life so that I wouldn't tremble when producing sound in front of others, the way I did when my father asked my child self as he held the camera, "Hi Sandy, how are you, baby?" I had nothing to say but a weak and unsure, "good." Now I've come back to what seems my childhood again, learning about accents and producing them, excited by them, enjoying the reading aloud of any Sanskrit words and sounds I come across, intrigued to hear and read sounds through the International Phonetic Alphabet, and now recording my voice reading soulful and insightful words, such as those by Ranbindranath Tagore. That childish insecurity had fueled a desire to overcome it. The child is still growing. The soul still has its desires. It means to meet itself as it truly is. Is it, then, a wonder that we work today on yesterday?

What was yesterday anyway? It is the same as today. My soul was there then as it is here now and if it is filled with yesterday does it mean it is now-removed? Or is it filled with experience that I am to understand?

Today I look in the mirror, and having recently seen old video footage of me as a 4-year-old, I see mostly the child. Then I look harder and see me the adult. The lines separating today from yesterday are blurred, like the beginning and ending of a wrinkle on my face which changes momentarily. I am not sure anymore that I need to forget the past and let it go. In reexamining yesterday I can better understand now, now that I am so far removed and yet so very close to the past.

The lines are blurred between now and then

because there are no lines but in my head.