Maybe you should..?
Took the family back to the old homestead. Well, sort of. It was an area near where I grew up and "played" as a teenager. The boys and I did the amusement park where I have very fond memories of playing with the school jazz band, spending time with family, and watching fireworks displayed. We stayed right on the old public dock, where my Grampa would take my sister and me to look through the viewers out into the bay. All of these were fond reminders of a happy time in my life, a stroll down memory lane. Seeing those places through the eyes of my boys made me feel young and carefree again.
I think most people would agree that you can't go back. You need to get your head out of the past and live in the present. I agree. But I also think that we need to recognize and perhaps reconcile our pasts so that we CAN move forward. Figure out how that past shaped us and how or if we want it to continue to shape us or break free of it. Maybe that's just part of this whole mid-life experience...the looking back and looking forward simultaneously.
We didn't get to the lake like I had wanted to do. That's a place filled with much emotion. It's where my parents met and my dad took us when he was dating mom. It's where I learned to water ski and go boating. It's where I spent a great deal of my summer days and evenings, in love and invincible. But in looking back now, I guess maybe some memories should remain just that, without the present interferring. Because so much has changed since then, and it could crowd out the good times.
Maybe that explains why I felt so much when we left that area: nostalgic, longing, wistfulness, a little raw even....for time to slow down,for that carefree feeling, for knowing that you CAN'T go back, even if you want, because life keeps moving forward. And that just is what it is...so we may as well embrace it as best we can, right?
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