Thursday 9 July 2009

Misty, water coloured memories...

I’m not sleeping well at the moment. I’m really tired but when I get into bed my head is still whirling around like a tornado and there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it. I like having an organised mind so I tend to go through what I need to do the following day. Before I know it I’m getting ideas for my book and I have to work out little strategies to try and remember them in amongst the million other thoughts. I can't tell you the times I have had amazing ideas only to wake up the next morning and they’ve disappeared like tears in the rain. Very frustrating. I have tried the notebook by the side of the bed, by the way. More often than not it feels like I’ve just managed to drift off to sleep when I am awoken by Junior jumping on my head with his latest Power Ranger manoeuvre.
Anyway…I was saying. Last night I just could not get to sleep. Instead of lying watching the clock change I decided to get up and look through some old photo albums. A life captured on film. I had a chuckle, I had a tear in my eye. Regrets? I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention. Yes, there are some things I would have changed but then who doesn’t have things they would change about their lives? I wouldn’t want to go back in time for all the chocolate in Thornton’s. OK, I was younger and thinner but what does that matter when you’re completely miserable? Oscar Wilde once said, “The one charm of the past is that it is the past” and I agree. Especially when it comes to some of the dodgy haircuts and fashion disasters!
Despite finding my first grey hair this afternoon (waiting in the car outside my old High School just to make me feel even older!) it struck me that there is no other time and place I would rather be than the here and now. I am at my happiest at the moment. It doesn't get better than this as far as I'm concerned. There are a few things I would relive if I was given the chance - my first kiss with my one true love (1988), my first outdoor concert (1993) my last day of High School (1989) but all in all I’m so very glad I don’t have to go through growing up all over again. There’s a certain kind of peace that comes with growing old. Not that I’m ready for the old people's home quite yet! No more trying to impress people, no more hurtful mistakes. It feels like the worst is over. It’s nice to be able to look back on your life and remember the good times. It's nice to see the friends you had when you were ten are the friends you have now. It's nice to see the love that has surrounded you all your life (without you even being aware of it). It's nice to see how far you've come since the days of spots and crippling shyness. But, it’s also nice to close the pages of the photo album and focus on the present.
I love this quote from “The Neurotics Handbook” (1960) “The past is strapped to our backs. We do not have to see it; we can always feel it” What you need to remember about the past is that no matter what has happened, the mistakes you’ve made, the hurt you’ve felt, it has all worked together to bring you to this moment. And this is the moment you can choose to make everything new. Right now.

No comments:

Post a Comment