Reacquainted

It appears that I suffer from a strange amnesia. I seem to have the same revelations over and over. It astonishes me that I can forget a revelation.

It is a shame, because these insights should be instructive. I should build on them to improve my life.

This week I was in Washington, DC doing a freelance project for a client I had a decade ago. I haven't worked in public policy since 1999. It was strange instance of deja vu to be riding the Metro and visiting Congressional offices.

I was reintroduced to people I worked with while lobbying. We haven't met in ten years, and an unacknowledged assessment of our alterations accompanied each of our greetings.

The things I recall are also strange. While walking in the basement of the Dirksen building I remembered that there was a crummy cafe in the area that had a wonderful veggie burger.

Of course, some things have changed. The staffers seem impossibly young to me now. Security has made access to buildings more difficult.

The gift from this experience is that hard-gained knowledge was submerged rather than erased. While holding discussions with Congressional staffers and my peers, long forgotten points of food safety policy emerged.

The insight I want to recall is that the work of the past always informs the present. The conventional view is that the events of the past are dead. I finally threw away all of my records related to public policy work in August 2008. Now I find myself unexpectedly engaged in it again.

I retain easily the notion that negative past events can haunt a person at any time, but it somehow surprises me to realize that neutral or positive past experiences can influence one's life years later.

I tend to underestimate my power, skills, and resources. What I hope to recall in the future is that my experiences live within me and can be tapped at any time.