There is a part of our lives about which we know very little. It happened before we were old enough to keep memories we could later recount. We were there, we inhabited the world, yet we cannot return to that place. Our memory holds no reliable images of that time—only an initial silence, scenes in which we were the protagonists without ever having the chance to keep the costume or the script. It is a strange paradox: we have a past that belongs to us simply because we lived it, yet we were summarily dispossessed of it because we cannot remember it. And yet, we tend to believe that this period was decisive. We confidently say that childhood shaped us, that certain experiences left deep marks, that what we lived through in our earliest years helps explain the contours of our temperament or the hesitations in our steps. Perhaps it is true. Very early experiences can indeed play a part in how we learn to trust, suppress pain, respond to fear, form bonds with others, and perceive the sha...
Some events behave like anchors. Time passes. Life's current quietly carries us forward, yet they remain fixed on the seabed. Every now and then, a forgotten photograph, a familiar song, or an ordinary street is enough to make us feel the chain tighten once again. The ship has sailed thousands of miles, but something still binds it to that distant point beneath the water. And whenever the chain grows taut, it almost always brings an old pain back with it. Not all pain, however, comes from the same place. Some deeply painful experiences eventually find their rightful place in our story. They still sadden us when we remember them, but they no longer seem to demand anything from us. Others do the opposite. They remain unfinished. We know exactly what happened. And yet they return, again and again, as though the mind were still trying to complete a task that time alone has never managed to finish. For years, I believed that this task was simply to understand the past more clear...