remembering – The Indecisive Eejit

There are many things that happen in our lifetime, some good and some bad. For me personally, I seem to be able to remember the momentous occasions, usually, because of the way my brain works, the bad ones. But there are also milestones too, not necessarily amazingly good things, but times that meant something or dates that had significance.

It seems though that as I get older the small but still important things become more faded, I find myself relating dates to before my leg injury and after, because that is a date I never seem to forget.

I recently found an old journal, it was not detailed descriptions, but more snapshots of where I was at that particular time. It jogged my memory and brought back a few names and locations that have long been forgotten. It was fun to read, but also difficult because it made me realise that my anxiety issues have been with me for longer than I thought.

Blogging for me was never about sharing all the details of my life, I tended to write when there was a lot going on in my head and I needed to clear some space. This means that I didn’t always note the smaller less important things and now I am beginning to wish I had.

It made me think about whether this is something I need to change in order to help me remember. Is my old lady brain going to progress from more than asking myself what I went into a specific room for, because that in itself is extremely frustrating sometimes believe me.

There has to be a benefit of noting down important things, like when and how I met friends and also sometimes how I lost them. Important places I visited and the memories that became associated with them. Losses and gains, they are all important in their own way to form the foundations of a life lived and also perhaps to remind my brain on its bad days that there were gains, not just losses.

I haven’t come to any firm decisions yet, but it’s something I might quite like to try.

Hey brain, here’s to making memories and actually remembering them.

What about you, do you journal to remember ?

While catching up on reading the other day I came across a lovely post from Cathi over at Dear Anonymous Friend. In it she paid a wonderful tribute to her friend who had recently passed away and recalled memories from their childhood. It started me thinking about my own.

It would be hard for the younger generation (and I’m not that old) to understand that not so long ago there was life before mobile phones and technology. As Cathi alluded to in her post, the preferred method of getting your friends to come out and play was usually either banging on their door or yelling for them at the top of your voice.

Instead of mobile phones and games consoles there were fields, trees, rivers, streams and laneways that stretched for miles into glorious countryside which we were able to weave into any fairytale we chose.

Back then my games console was a kite donated to me by my Uncle. I would spend hours dancing through fields trying to make it fly, and when successful, watching it’s 60ft tail whip and whirl in the wind. Cowpats on the soles of my shoes were a regularity, because after all, it’s hard to see the ground when your eye is on the sky.

Our local shop had a vast array of sweets hidden behind a glass counter, sticky with fingerprints from people like myself eager to choose the best options possible for inclusion in a 10p mix. For anyone who remembers such a counter, Bazooka’s, Fish & Chips, milkteeth and Dracula’s teeth were my favourites.

I went to the shop on this little red bike which had the capability to fold in half. It wasn’t anything special, but I attached an old car Ariel to the back which I then tied ribbons to the top of. I must have looked like a right eejit, but back then I thought I was the bee’s knees as I cycled to meet my friends.

Even as we got older we still made do with what we had. The beach, the place which had provided so much fun when we were younger became the place we would visit to discuss our problems. Somehow everything seemed better under the roar of the waves from the rough sea.

Life seemed a lot easier then, more carefree, and it was, because by and large we had until that point been shielded from the complexities that life had to offer.

If only we had known then what lay ahead.

There are a lot of things I don’t remember about my childhood. They are locked in my poor brain somewhere and usually it takes a reminder from someone else to give them a jolt and bring them back to life.

Other things I remember only to well. Some I wish I could forget.

But no complaints here, it was a good life. Now I wonder where I put that kite.