The past exists not as a factual recounting of what happened, but as an experience that we are constantly recreating in our mind which means we CAN change the past!
In recounting our woes, we often soothe them.
You're in charge but don't touch the controls. Recounting what the two Russian cosmonauts tell her each time they leave the Mir space station for a spacewalk.
One often calms one's grief by recounting it.
The recounting of a life is a cheat. . . even our own stories are obscenely distorted.
Counting blessings is better than recounting problems