(This is one of these things which I can only talk about with myself or with people on the Internet. But I thought it was worth sharing...)
Different people have different ways of dealing with their past. I'm one of those who do their best to forget it. Even the good periods. I don't take photos, I destroy written and digital documents as soon as I can reasonably do so, and I do my best to focus on what I am now and forget what I've been before. When it fails, the fallback mechanism is simply to hate what I've been enough that I'd prefer to look at what I'm now. It's not too hard, I only have to dig a bit in my memory before I find plenty of reasons to do so. Bad memories last longer and come back easier.
This way, I hope that I'll never fall in the trap of nostalgia. Which is, the way I see it, exceedingly forgiving the past, to the point where I'd only think about the good part of each past event in depressing moments, forgetting how it has ended, and above all why it was unavoidable. I've heard about people who keep running about their exes, and I don't want to see myself do silly things like that. I want to be someone I can be proud of, being a whiny child which can not accept reality does not fit this category.
And all in all, it works pretty well. Caring about my present, I've managed to build - and am still building - myself a life I can be happy about.
Yet sometimes I still want to take a glimpse at my former selves and their environment. See what previous friends have become, chat with them for a minute or two, laugh at those mistakes I made that they know probably have forgiven and forgotten, before forgetting everything about them again. And then I realize that with all the precision and care I'm capable of, I've made sure by myself that I won't be able to access this part of my life ever again. That I don't have an email, a phone number, or something. That the only link I've left with a person who used to be the closest to me at some point of my past is the address of a house where she doesn't live anymore, that the only thing which remains of best Internet friends is nicknames which are too generic to return any meaningful result.
In these moments, I feel like one feels when looking at a cliff, at a huge pit of abysmal height, and wondering how this void can be there now where there used to be people and life. I'm shocked by how consciously I've disintegrated my past, bit by bit, till nothing remains available to me, how carefully I've built these barriers, putting extreme care in the task of making sure that I won't be able to cross them.
After the initial shock, this void leaves other, weird feelings in my mind. Thinking that I was the one who created it sometimes scares me to no end. That cold-blooded, clean, but extreme violence, like a slaughterhouse that has been consciously taken care of until it blood stains have disappeared and everything shines by a Hollowood psychopath, makes a child remain inside of me want to flee, to escape from this calm and silent murderer that I have become. But the price which every conscious being pays for the joy of living is that he can't escape himself and the weight of what he has done.
So when I've calmed down, accepted that this is the way I've decided to live and that I can do nothing about it, I just sit on the edge of that infinite cliff inside of my head, close my eyes, take a deep breath, open my eyes again, and contemplate the void where my present used to stand some times ago in a meditative fashion.
And after a while, I stand up and go back to my everyday life as if nothing had ever happened, leaving the void behind me for some more time...
Neolander added on
(Kroc said "Don't be ashamed of talking about things which matter to *you*, throw things around and see if they stick", so here's my part :))