Last week’s question about choosing to see the world differently led to this one: What if I saw myself not as what I was, with all my stories, but without them? Who would I be if I weren’t who I was?

What if I continue to see myself as a daughter, but not the daughter of the parents in the family I was raised, but simply and only as the 62-year-old daughter of the 88-year-old mother? What if I enter into every conversation with my mother simply as me now and mom as her now?

What if stuff I have wished were different—my father, my mother, etc., etc., blah, blah—what if rather than trying to understand it as a way of understanding myself, what if I just dropped it, all of it, let it go? What if any time I feel my head start to swivel to the past I simply bring it back to center and whisper to myself, “Now.” And then, “Onward.”

I have been imagining this, this dropping of stories. When I do, my body feels bigger. I feel more air in my chest. The chatter in my mind quiets. I feel lighter.

It feels good.