New Track

Someone once said that the past never changes. This isn’t wrong, but neither is it entirely correct. For many, the past is always the same: a record of failed attempts rather than success, a study of what not to do—of what we did rather than what we should have done. Wonderful! Now what?

The solution is to lay new track.

Growing up, I remember being fascinated by the model trains at F.A.O. Schwarz, the iconic toy store in New York City. Every Christmas, they were displayed in a large exhibit. Lionel trains featured prominently, but there were other smaller trains from Germany and Switzerland. Tiny locomotives pulling cars of all kinds would pop into tunnels and come out in surprising places. Several trains ran simultaneously, but I noticed they always traveled in a loop and never left the table. Some were fast. Some were slow, but their destinations were the same. They went nowhere, and that brings me to my point.

To go somewhere different, you have to lay new track. To have a new adventure and a new life, you have to lay new track.

This applies to romances and marriages as well. The familiar is fine. It’s comfortable, predictable, and grounding, but for two people to feel reborn, to wonder again at each other, and be dazzled, one must lay new track.

It is unfortunately true that with too many failures, too much pain, a disaster or a death, one can be held in the endless loop of the past. The solution is to lay new track, and I can assure you that if enough new track is laid down, the past that we can remember easily will change—slowly at first, but faster and faster.

By laying down new track, each of us can create a new past for ourselves and build a brighter future.