Tag: nostalgia

Vintage Friday

Happy Friday!! Happy Favorite Things Friday!! On Fridays, I discuss the tactile stuff that is fun to eat or to drink or to smell, or to hear, or to read, or to wear, or to touch, or to play with! Lately I have been feeling really sentimental for the toys I played with when I was a little girl. I’ve even purchased a few things on eBay. I tell myself, “Won’t it be fun for my future grandchildren to play with the toys I used to play with?”, but I think it’s more than that – I think my inner child is reaching out. There is something comforting about remembering being a child, and being in the moment, not a care in the world, just using our imagination. Below are some of my favorite toys from childhood. What were your favorites?

Barbies, Dawn Dolls, Liddle Kiddles, Rosebud dolls, Sea Wees, Inchworm Riding Toy, paper dolls, Holly Hobbie dolls, Sunshine Family Dolls, Honeybunch Hill Kid dolls, Bionic Man and Woman dolls, Wonder Woman dolls, I Dream of Jeannie Playset, Wizard of Oz Dolls, Big Wheels, Baby Chrissy doll, Mrs. Beasley doll, Chinese jump rope.

As I started growing out of toys, my sister (who is five years younger than me) really got into Strawberry Shortcake dolls (she particularly loved Blueberry Muffin) and Cabbage Patch dolls and never one to sit quietly, she LOVED her Sit-N-Spin.

Anyway, take a trip down memory lane today, and look up some of your own favorite toys on the internet. This will make you feel that happy/sad syrupy feeling of nostalgia. It will bring all sorts of feelings up to the surface, but in a good way. It will make you feel like a kid again.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

823. What vegetable do you hate? (Don’t say “all of them” – just because I advised letting yourself be a kid again, doesn’t mean you get out of eating your vegetables!)

Park It

I’m sorry for the late post today. We were at a major amusement park all day yesterday. I’m out of practice with amusement parks. The last time I was at this particular park I was a chaperone for a school trip – middle schoolers. Ugh. It was quite stressful back then, trying to keep track of hormone-filled tweens with all different interests (and/or lack of interests) in rides, and who also had especially keen abilities to disappear. I remember being on the bus on the way home from that trip, smiling to myself, as 12 Rod’s “Glad That It’s Over” played loudly in my headphones.

Yesterday was truly wonderful though. My husband and I smiled at each other, thrilled that we were still able to handle some of the major rides (without getting sick), but also able to be the human coat racks for our kids who were going on some of the major, major rides. My husband commented that the marvelous thing about theme parks is that they make it so that many generations can be together, and still have great fun together. There is usually something there for everyone in theme parks, even if it is just to vicariously see, and to feel the joy that occurs in a day of “escape” for everyone together in the park. We left the park (at closing time), exhausted but in a good way. I looked at all of the other people leaving the park with us, and everyone looked weary, but also utterly satiated. All of our muscles were clearly rubbery and spent from walking all day, and from holding tenseness on the rides, but our smile muscles couldn’t stop working for all of us, as we peacefully made our way to our cars, knowing that we were all headed to a good night’s sleep.

Question for the Day from 3000 Questions About Me:

1119. What keeps you optimistic?

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Welcome to poetry day on the blog. Our two middle sons moved to new apartments recently and so, as we mothers do, I sent them a reminder text to change their mailing addresses on the post office’s website. I wrote, “Hi boys. Please remember to change your addresses on the post office’s website.” Two hours later, I had an aha moment. Our sons are not “boys.” Our sons are fine young men of the ages of 25 and almost 23. I sent a new text to them, correcting my error, and telling them that I should not have called them “boys”. I proudly see what amazing men they are turning out to be. But, fellow parents, let’s be real. If I am honest with myself, our sons will always be my little baby boys (and our daughter will always be my precious little baby girl) and so when I read this poem, shared below, this past week, I thought to myself, “Wow, Robert Hershon nailed it. He just nailed it.” I think that there is nothing more fulfilling in any creator’s heart than when we have written/sang/painted/photographed, etc. something and we get this proud knowing feeling that says, “Damn, I just nailed it.” Try nailing one of your passions today (maybe even nail art?), and give yourself that satisfactory feeling of savoring it.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Reunited

Happy Birthday to the daughter of my dreams. Dreams do come true!! I love you infinitely.

This weekend my husband and I are visiting with, and reconnecting with a couple who were part of the “neighborhood gang”, when we were raising young families. Our family, and this couple and their family, lived in the same lovely locale in North Carolina, where we all raised our children, for the span of about a decade, over a decade ago. There were probably about ten families, or so, who were part of this core group and we did play groups, and book clubs, and happy hours, and we spent endless hours together at the neighborhood pool. We took trips together – camping with the kids (or more specifically, girls weekends without the kids, while the dads went camping with the kids – there were always lots of ‘interesting’ stories and photos after these events. Thankfully everyone came out of it all, alive and well, in order to relay the stories). There was also a couples’ getaway to the Caribbean, and an annual families’ trip to the mountains to cut down our Christmas trees – a favorite tradition for all of us, despite the creepy Santa, in the cabin at the foot of the mountains, who made everyone, kids and parents alike, more than a little leary. (My adult kids, to this day, can still perfectly mimic this Santa’s high-pitched, eerie whiny voice, “And what do youuuuuu want for Christmas, little one?”) Our children all attended the same, sweet, close-by elementary school, and we parents all had the peace of mind of knowing that on any given day, there was likely at least one extra set of eyes and ears and a loving, caring heart around our children, at any point in time, as many of us volunteered there at the school, throughout the years. It was honestly an idyllic place, and almost a “tribal” way to raise young children, and not too far off from the Norman Rockwell version of my softened memories and descriptions.

But as life inevitably rolls out and goes on, there were moves, and divorces, and squabbles, and aging kids scattering in all different directions, wherever their individual interests and activities and educations were taking them. Bye and bye, this group of young, energetic, hopeful parents of many, many beautiful, quickly growing and expanding offspring, mostly dispersed and moved on. Most of these relationships, at least for my husband and I, are now not much more than an annual Christmas card exchange. (I am not much one for Facebook and Instagram. I am a look forward person. Sometimes the past holds too many knots of nostalgia, that keep me all tangled up. . . I have learned that it is better for me, to stay clear of those knots.)

So, I am entering this weekend with anxious trepidation and overall excitement. I mentioned this to my local friends and to my hair stylist, and to my son’s girlfriend, and everyone had the same response: “Oh you’ll probably just start right where you left off! It will seem like you have never been apart.”

I hope so. I believe so. But no matter what happens this weekend, I’ll never forget what we all shared together in times past. My stomach is in knots already. But these knots of nostalgia and excitement and connection, I’ll hold on to for now. Sometimes glimpsing a little bit into your past, reminds you of all of the qualities of strength, and love, and hope, and the ability to connect with others, that you have always possessed in yourself – qualities that you have to bring with you, as you create your own broad, unseen, unknown future. Looking over the treasure of what you shared in the past, reminds you that fond memories are treasures that never go away.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Starry Skies

My sister used to say that everything has an expiration date. We were actually talking about hair stylists at the time. My current hair stylist is wonderful. I have been going to her for several years now, and unless she retires, I don’t see an expiration date in sight for using her services. But I have had several hair stylists throughout the years and at the time of having that conversation, I was feeling guilty about wanting to try a new one.

I was reminded of this conversation because recently my middle son was lamenting about feeling uneasy about a friendship that he is no longer interested in pursuing. He has had this friend since they were children, but they are going on two completely different paths in life, and they have very little in common anymore. The glue that keeps them together is little more than “guilt” these days, and perhaps a little bit of a sad nostalgia for “what was”.

I’ve had meaningful relationship experiences with people I was only with for a day – a nurse who held me and soothed me when I was crying about my miscarriage, an almost all night long, deep, meaningful conversation with other teenagers whom I had met on a summer vacation across the country, and a cancer patient whom I met on a long flight. She and I ended up sharing a pleasant lunch together at an airport. I have never forgotten any of these people. Obviously. I am writing about them now.

How long a relationship lasts does not indicate how profound or meaningful it is to your life. Healthy relationships are built on mutual connection and affection. Unhealthy relationships are based on fear, obligation and guilt. What was once a mutually healthy, growing relationship, can become unstable, and stale, and even toxic. Everyone and everything on this earth is involved in a constant process of change. Sometimes these evolutions bring you closer to others, and sometimes these transformations show that the time has come to go our separate ways.

Sometimes it’s necessary to love people from afar, and from a distance. Sometimes it’s comforting to reflect on all of the connections that you have made in your own lifetime, and to remember these relationships and experiences fondly and gratefully for the growth that they have created in you. It is sort of like gazing at the same stars, in the same sky. We all have stars of connection that we have shared with others throughout our lifetime, and the light from the stars of those same shared connections, continue to shine brightly, in our hearts, in the form of gratefulness and of fond memories. By the end of our lifetimes, we will have created a star-filled sky of connections for ourselves, and at the same time, we know that we are a shiny, brilliant part (no matter how distant) of many others’ star-filled skies of lifetime connections, relationships, and bonds. No relationship is ever truly over if it is always remembered. We just have to look up at the starry skies at night to understand this pure truth.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Just Me and Him

Today’s the real deal. My daughter having started college with summer classes was just a trial run. I convinced myself that she was just away at summer camp. Plus, my son was home all summer with us, doing a summer internship. Today, my youngest son and my daughter are headed up to their university for the fall semester. Today is the first time in twenty-six years, that our household is truly whittled down to just me and him (and three crazy dogs).

My sister-in-law has been going through and digitizing old family pictures and yesterday, she sent a new set of them. One of the pictures was of two cute, young twenty-somethings, at the back of a limo, headed to their honeymoon. Just me and him.

Little did we know, that from that limo ride, a lifetime of spectacular adventures awaited us, raising a large family with an expanding vision, with a prideful energy and sometimes living on just a wing and a prayer. Just me and him (and our big brood).

It’s kind of like we are back in the back of that limo today. Only this time, it’s our kids ahead of us on the road, waving happily back at us, as they move on forward in their own directions towards the lives of their own dreams. I imagine that we are sitting back there in our cushioned seats of the limo, imagining this next coming stage in our shared lives, with an expanding vision, a prideful energy, fully knowing and better understanding that some of it will have to be lived on a wing and a prayer. We are full of trepidation, yet also excitement and anticipation. Just like the last ride in the back of the limo almost 28 years ago, we are ready as we can be. Just me and him.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Miss U

My daughter and I both get reunited with our romantic partners today. My husband has been away for over a week, helping an ailing family member. And my daughter took summer session classes at her university, while her boyfriend travelled with his family to see various friends and relations over the summer. This morning, needless to say, the air in our house is one of girly giddiness.

You really know how much you care about someone when there is an aching void in your life when they aren’t around. While I think that it is healthy for everyone to get individual breaks from one another, there is truth to the saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder. You forget about all of your nitpicky gripes that you have about your partner, when you are pining away for the comfort of their every day presence.

I’m happy that my daughter and her boyfriend have modern day technology like FaceTime and Snapchat and texting. When my husband and I were in college, we spent every summer apart, as we lived in different states, several hours away from one another. With having jobs and other responsibilities, we were lucky if we saw each other once in a summer. We didn’t have cell phones, and those long distance calls were incredibly expensive. So, we wrote love letters. Remember those? Sigh. Love letters are wonderful. Maybe this modern technology isn’t always such a great thing after all.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Summer

credit: @nemerevermore, Twitter

How’s everyone’s summer going? An informal survey with my friends and relations says that it is going “really fast.” I feel the same way. But really, we all get the same 24 hours in any day. And summer is roughly equal to the same amount of time as any of the other three seasons. Perception is a funny thing.

I saw the quote listed below and it reminded me that almost all of us have had a summer crush/vacation connection (usually in our teenage years), or perhaps, we all can think of that just one particularly amazing summer in which everything was just right: our bodies looked and felt great, our trips and our weekend events were amazing and particularly memorable, we felt unusually relaxed and connected with all of our friends and our family, and the weather cooperated perfectly through it all. We just wished that the summer would never, ever end.

“I’ll never regret someone that I had an amazing time and experience with. Even if we fall off, you made my life special at a certain time. We grew together, even if we grew apart. Thank you.” – Poem Heaven (Twitter)

There is something about the slow, lazy, dreamy summer days that make you feel nostalgic for it, before it is even over.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

My Box Stays

I’ve been thinking a lot about change lately. This is a year of big changes for us. Our fourth and youngest child could be starting college as early as this summer. Parenting has been my main gig since I was 25 years old. Other than some part-time jobs here or there, raising our four children has been my main focus and purpose in my life. Whether I’m ready for it or not, I am getting mostly retired from my career here, in a few short months. While saying this, I fully understand that we will always be mothers for life, but if we mothers have done our jobs right, then this mothering gig should be nothing more than a side hustle, and a supportive role, once the kiddos graduate from high school. I pray that I’ve done my job right.

Sometimes we actively create the changes in our own lives. We see things in our lives that are not going in the direction that we like, such as personal habits, relationships, careers, spending patterns, etc. and we change our own course, purposefully, and intentionally. More often than this, though, is that change happens around us, and we learn to adapt. We end up having to change for the change. There is no other choice but to adjust and to evolve, or otherwise stay stubbornly frustrated and recalcitrant, sometimes to the point of our own demise.

The other day, I was writing holiday thank you notes. I picked up my small recipe box, with the now quite faded title, “My Bride’s File”. I have had this box for the 27 years I’ve been married, plus the year before that, when I was engaged to be married. This little coated cardboard box has made it through moving to seven different locations, in three different states. The mailing addresses that this little box holds, contains the most important people, to me, in my lifetime. Some are originals. Their card is the original card that states whether or not they were making it to our wedding, and whether or not we wrote “a thank you” for their wedding gift. I may have had to cross out a few addresses to make room for new addresses, but the card itself is an original. Eventually I ran out of “original cards” that came with this box, so I purchased brightly colored notecards in order to make room for the new colorful people who came along, throughout the years, as new and wonderful parts and influences of our family’s life and experiences. The box holds a rainbow.

For the first time, in a long, long time, I consciously contemplated this box. It is faded. It is scratched. It is honestly kind of grimy. (I admit that I took a lemon bacterial wipe and I wiped it down really well.) I don’t consider myself to be a hoarder. Although I can be stubborn and reluctant to new technology, I have adapted throughout the years. (I figured out how to publish this blog all on my own, right?) I realize that most people put their loved one’s mailing addresses in a computer application now. It makes sense. It’s efficient. It doesn’t take up room or waste paper. Addresses are easy to change on computer applications. Most of our Christmas cards that we received this year, were addressed with computer printed stickers which were much neater and readable than my sloppier than ever handwriting. I also realize that it is believed that traditional “snail mail” itself will probably become obsolete in the near future. I can see how this might help “save the Earth.”

Still, my box. My beloved “My Bride’s File” box. The beloved people in their beloved places that they call home, that this box holds for me. The beloved people’s names written in my own handwriting, spanning 27+ years. My box. My beloved “My Bride’s File” Box. I know that change is inevitable. I know that adaption is crucial for survival. Still, my box. My box. My box stays.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Soul Sunday

Hi friends. I don’t think that this past full week of the new year is what any of us were aiming for, to start the year out right. These are strange times which we are going through. However, we are not alone. We are experiencing a lot of “stuff”, together. I am grateful to commune with all of you, as we navigate another year of our lives, together. My regular readers know that I dedicate Sundays to poetry. Please share your poems (they are there, in your heart – put a pen in your hand and let them flow out. You will be pleasantly surprised – “Shakespeare’s a poet, and doesn’t know it”) in my Comments section. Today I wrote this poem (I hope that you may relate, and that you can enjoy some familiarity, with me):

It Never Fails

It never fails,

Every year I find it,

That one little relic,

of the holidays past,

That I forgot to put away.

This year it was a sparkly hand towel,

In the powder room,

Depicting a Christmas tree,

Shiny, erect, hopeful and bright.

Could it be a subconscious hint?

Much like a woman who leaves her glove,

After an enjoyable evening out,

Perhaps it’s an honest mistake,

or perhaps it’s an intuitive gesture,

From something deep inside,

Trying to connect and to keep and to hold,

The magic of the moment alive,

For the entire year to come.