It was my fourth pregnancy. My water had broken and I was at the hospital, experiencing the first pangs of labor. I was in pain. My back hurt. My belly hurt. Everything hurt. In a moment of unexpected clarity, I shouted: “What was I thinking? What was I thinking?!”

I had suddenly remembered the bloody, painful experience that was childbirth, and I could not believe that I was stupid enough to go through it for a fourth time! Fortunately, my body was stronger than my spirit, and I gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

It’s been said that women have been biologically programmed to forget the pains of childbirth for the propagation of the species. Maybe. I don’t know. In my case, I was just so overjoyed at seeing my son that I forgot how it was that he came to be with me.

More than five decades on this earth has given me all sorts of experiences, not all of them pleasant. While I do appreciate every wrinkle, I’m not particularly keen on remembering every sad episode that may have caused those fine lines.

The past is bad, move on.

The past is good, don’t stay there.

A favorite plot twist device in movies and television shows is amnesia. The protagonist forgets fragments of his past, throwing the story into haywire, the better to test relationships or a character’s resolve.

Forgetting might seem like a cop-out but then again, who wants to remember everything?

I’ve met people who just would not let go of past hurts that it is exhausting. They go on and on about how a particular experience was so horrible or how a particular person hurt them long after the actual event transpired.

And then there are those who love reliving their glory days over and over and over again, talking about the “good times” long after they’re gone. Yes, the good old days were good, but we don’t grow by staying there.

The past is bad, move on.

The past is good, don’t stay there.

I prefer my amnesia to be selective, and it starts with writing. Confronted with experiences not so pleasant, I let it all out on paper. My journal and I, we’re close and I confess to her my thoughts and feelings about everything—what went right, what went wrong, what made me happy, what made me sad, what made me laugh in glorious abandon, what made me scream from the depths of my soul. After some time has passed—a day, a month, a year—I make myself a little bonfire. I rip the pages of my confessions, and burn them. The act of burning my words, seeing them turn into ashes is cathartic. It’s like releasing all my hurts to the universe so that I have room for new experiences.

There is just so much good in this world, so much beauty, let’s not be afraid to go chasing after them.