Is what's past in the past?

Is it possible to always leave the past in the past? How do past mistakes, past successes, past friendships, past loves factor into or influence the present, the future?

I know that there are certain past experiences in my life that strongly influence my current life, beliefs, practices, interactions.

The outdoors: I grew up somewhat in the sterotypical middle of nowhere on five acres, so I spent much of my childhood outside. My family traveled farily extensively in the summers, so vacations were spent hiking in the mountains, camping in remote locations, exploring national parks, identifying plants, searching for glimpses of rare wildlife. Plus, my grandparents owned 10 acres, so any weekend spent there was full of climbing trees, playing hide and seek in the orchard, swinging as high as possible on the tire swing, riding on the tractor with my grandfather, making snow angels. Next, I come from a die-hard Scouting family - Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. Through fifth or sixth grade, I spent at least a week every summer at Girl Scout camp - creeking, swimming, campfires, stargazing, singing.

In my teens, I graduated to Boy Scout camp. I was lucky enough to be a member of a co-ed program called Explorers. Plus, my dad was so active in Boy Scouts that I became a regular sidekick at Roundtable and District meetings. I spent an uncountable number of weekends at Camp McKinley, where irony strikes since my parents now live there. And hey, when you're 15, Boy Scout camp is a great place to meet boys, especially with the boy-to-girl ratio is like 50-1. The summer after my junior year of high school, my parents allowed their fearless daughter to board a train to New Mexico to work on staff at Philmont, a Boy Scout ranch, for the entire summer. It was the best one of my life. Even though I just worked in the kitchen (I was only 17 and too young for them to put me anywhere else), my days off were spent backpacking in the back country, hanging with my friends in the staff camps, gallery hopping in Taos, quasi skinny dipping at the hot springs, running Chinese fire drills in the middle of Cimarron, eating nachos with jalapeno peppers. God, it was a great summer.

So with all of these influences, I suppose it's not a surprise that I still enjoy spending time outdoors. There is something about the quiet, the wind whistling in the trees, sitting next to a campfire with friends, laying in the cool grass under the stars, enjoying a colorful sunset that always makes me feel better. There are few other things in my life that can bring me that level of peace.

The type of friend I am: Sometimes when you look at siblings, it's hard to imagine they grew up in the same house. This isn't the case for my sister and I. We have great parents (which means anything that's wrong with me can't be blamed on them) who led by example, so Pen and I were raised to know how important family and friends are. We both would do nearly anything for the people we care about.

The relationship side of me: So I've been in a long-term relationship that completely didn't work out. We got married. We got divorced. Getting to that last part was stressful and at times extremely painful, as well as sprinkled with moments of tears, anger, forgiveness, clarity.

So the question arises of how do the experiences lived while being married and divorced influence a future relationship. From talking to other friends who have lived through the divorce thing, it can vary widely by person. If it was a difficult divorce that involved bitterness, hurt feelings and resentment that lasted through the entire process, sometimes it seems more challenging to move on, forgive, let go of past wrongs.

But if it's possible to be lucky in divorce, I certainly was. We were together a long time. We started dating in our early teens, moved through college and first jobs and got married in our late 20s. Of course, we didn't figure out until after the fact, hurt feelings and missteps that while we each may have meant to be married, it just wasn't to each other. We both worked hard to save the marriage, but we weren't in love with each other anymore. In the end, fortunately, our divorce was mutual, and we parted as friends. Living through the experience changed certain things about me, taught me valuable lessons, influences how I am in a relationship.

So our past experiences, lives influence who we are in the present, who we become in the future. It's up to each of us to determine whether we grow from them, learn from them, become better people because of it.

Does two ever equal one

They say it's scientifically impossible for two objects to occupy the same space. Yet, when you meet that one person who seems to fill the empty space in your heart, it seems to become possible. The problem is knowing whether or not the person standing in front of you now is that one. That perhaps is the most difficult part of the equation.

I've never been a strong believer in the concept of soul mates - the idea that there is only one person in the world for you. I tend to lean towards the idea that as you move through your life you will come into contact with different people - and sometimes it's the right time and the right person, the one who makes the time spent searching worth it.

But again, the difficult part is knowing when you've found the right one. I'm guessing that the reality of the journey is that it will include some broken hearts and at least one or two someones who you thought might be the one who turn out not to be. I just hope we all get more than one chance to fall in love - to find the one that makes us feel at certain moments that scientific principles can be defied. Here's to the journey.