Why do I do that?

I don't know why we go over the old hurts
Again and again in our minds, the false starts
And true beginnings
of a world we call the past,
As if it could tell us who we are now,
Or were, or might have been . . .
It's drizzling.
A car door slams, just once, and he's gone.
Tiny pools of water glisten on the street.
"My Father's Back,"
Edward Hirsch (as quoted in Your Father Your Self by Barry H. Gordon, Ph.D)