New Years Regeneration

"we all change.
When you think about it, we're all different people all through our lives, and that's okay, that's good, you've got to keep moving.
So long as you remember all the people that you used to be.
I will not forget one line of this.
Not one day.
I swear."
-Matt Smith as the Doctor


A few weeks ago I was on the popular ipod app "Timehop". The premise of the app is pulling up facebook statuses from 2,3,4 and even 5 years ago creating the oh so beautiful feeling of nostalgia and reminding us all how absolutely idiotic we were in the 7th grade. On this particular day a few weeks ago, Timehop  pulled up a picture that really stroke a cord with me. I was standing with a group of people who I thought were going to be my friends for life and a boy who I thought was the love of my life had his arm around my shoulder. I was skinnier, my friends were cooler and I was yet to gain the reputation of  the crazy fangirl chick who spends far too much time on the internet. But despite all of these things that should have made me yearn for this past life, I found my self glad rather than upset. Although I did miss my old friends and old life, I was so happy that I had moved on and become this new person, who was no more and no less "myself", because if I hadn't have ever been this girl in the picture, I would have never become the person I am today.

   Human beings have a tendency to cling to the past, especially me. We have this need to crawl back into our old selves rather than move forward and become new, even more fantastic people. My favorite show in the entire world is the classic British Sci-fi series, Doctor Who (if you listen closely you can hear all of my friends and family releasing a heavy sigh). For those of you who don't know, the show centers around the Doctor, who rather than dying, "regenerates" into a new face (or rather, when one actor leaves they replace him with a new guy). The character still remains "The Doctor", retaining the same memories and keeping key personality traits but changing a few things. Aside from the change of face, the Doctor also changes things such as how dramatic he is, how energetic he is and how open he is among other minor traits.

     On Christmas day the fabulous Matt Smith, regenerated into Peter Capaldi, forever handing over his keys to the TARDIS. While past doctors have feared this change with cries of "I don't want to go!", Smith's doctor embraced the change, giving the monologue quoted above.  While this was of course meant to be about the change of actor and Doctor, I feel like it was also a message to all of us. A very timely message as it was given as the New Year is fastly approaching. We should not fear becoming new people, but we should not forget who we once were. We are who are because of who we used to be.

We must learn to lay our passed lives down to rest, bet let their memories live on, especially during this time of resolution and regeneration.

 

-Ellen