Reminiscing

Rereading some posts today and looking through the pictures - what a special time we had!  My eyes were quite misty looking back.

I love to reminisce.  I think this is a trait passed down from my Dad.  He LOVES to tell stories in the same vein as Mark Twain (just watched a documentary about him last night) and Garrison Keillor.  His stories are funny or just a little bit dangerous or recount a struggle or hardship.  I think of him as a modern day storyteller.

Gaston knows that a great date night for me includes remembering how we met, our first date, watching home movies of our babies.

I love reminiscing because I love reliving.  The best memories are the ones with the full body experience.  Remembering how I felt emotionally and physically, what the moment sounded like, smelled like.  I am hoping in heaven there will be a time machine of some sort where I can go back and hold my babies again and enjoy them.  I'm kind of counting on that.

I think I also love reminiscing because I hate change.  I cried when I turned thirteen, then sixteen.  I cried when I got married because the man in my life was changing.  I cried when Boo and Bud turned 5 because five years old isn't little anymore.  I cried for weeks and months when we stopped homeschooling and the kids went to school.  I think I am just afraid of what's next.  Will it be as good as what I've got now?

I love to live in the world of the past.  Is that bad?  I think sometimes it is, because I can be tempted to resist moving forward, change, risk.  Can anyone relate?  Or give advice on balancing remembering vs. making the memories?

A friend of mine was telling me how she lives in the future.  This was a very strange thought to me.  She imagines what her family will be doing in 5 years.  I don't think it's imagining in a "I want this to be my future so I will force it to happen" kind of way.  I think she just kind of imagines it in an attempt to prepare herself for change.

On Monday a very life giving friend and I went to the park.  We talked and talked and talked while our kids had a great time playing.  We hiked down to the lake and all of our kids jumped into the water fully clothed.  As the sunshine sparkled off the water, the boys bobbed out in the lake and her 3 year old daughter sang multiple versions of "Call me maybe" in an impossibly high, lispy, gravelly voice.  Great memory.  All senses engaged.