Eleven years ago I moved out of the martial home and into a house share with my friend. We were both leaving our wives and needed an interim pied-à-terre. It was a nice house a bit barren as I moved in with some stuff - just enough and then went and got some from the house and put the rest in storage (a bad move in some ways stuff got rusty etc). Anyhow that was what happened. Some years before that on the same day I'd had another operation that proved clear - there were a few of those too but better safe than sorry and hey, I'm still here!
It got me to wondering whether looking back is a good thing, is it reaffirming, useful or am I being romantically nostalgic? Were things better then or are they now? Are we ever "satisfied with our lot"? Recently a number of people I haven't spoken to in 40 year or possibly 50 years have been chatting in a Facebook group and connecting and whilst that's nice, it presents us all with these pictures of the past with photos of how we are now! I wrote a post a few days ago about how beautiful we were in our youth but we probably didn't know or realise it. We are still beautiful and we are probably able to reflect on that fact a bit more in a retrospective way through our children and grandchildren maybe.
Getting old isn't a lot of fun. Eyesight, Hearing, ailments, bits wearing out and today I feel cold my fingers and my back too. It's nature of course and it's inevitable that this will happen and in some ways when you do look back you see how physically fit you were, how active and how much stamina you had. I worked hard and did overtime, then travelled for sometimes over an hour to get home then had a quick bite to eat and then did a few hours work on the house. When I had time off I (and me ex) looked after a huge garden, did DIY around the house, repaired things, made wine, jam and the like with the garden produce and held down jobs. These days talking to youngsters they ware always tired and don't do much when they get home apart from Netflix. Geez, we worked like crazy but there you go things change. I'd like half of my energy and stamina back :-)
It's the problem of getting old and suddenly you are confronted with the problems of lifting heavy boxes and doing any heavy work just wears you out and that's annoying. You cannot help but look back and remember how fit you were.
The past has gone, no need to worry about it is something that I do now as I no longer beat myself up about it but I am writing a biography and I find that it is interesting to look back and reminisce about those "good times" for the bad times do fade I find. The trouble is that I can still be dragged mentally into the point where 11 years ago I left my old house for the last time and up to a point I was happy there. That if I had done something differently some other outcome may have occurred and of course, it didn't and it doesn't matter but the little voice in your head tries to take the thoughts over.
Looking back is OK but I need to firmly root myself here in the present or my mind will start to go back to its tortured state it was in 10 or more years ago!
No comments:
Post a Comment