Category: remember

Deadly routine

by worrylessjourney, posted in anxiety, change, choices, comparisons, consequences, habits, little things, remember

The days slip by and all seem more or less the same. I once read something that said change things up each day to make them stand out. Then it will seem that things are more interesting. It may only be driving to work a different way. That made sense. When I was still working I sometimes had no idea how I got to work. I knew I drove there but that’s about all.

change daily

We do have to be intentional about paying attention to life even when the days can blend into one another. Yesterday I baked bread and today I worked in the yard. That helps me remember those two days. If I just sit and watch TV then nothing is different.

Even in this covid time take time to make changes each day. Do something that makes that day memorable. It doesn’t have to be  spectacular but just something to mark the day.

When we drift into same, same, same it is easy to feel depressed and anxious. Just a walk outside to watch the birds will help.

Friends matter

by worrylessjourney, posted in accountable, aging, choices, connections, friends, important, remember, wisdom

Image result for nurture friendshipToday I heard from a friend that I haven’t talked to in a while. It reminded me that we need to not let the path grow up between us and our friends. Friends need to be nurtured. Friends need our attention. I need to remember that.

 

For me, friends matter. Even though right on the middle line between introvert and extrovert I rely on my friends. As I get older I hate the thought that some will die before me. I remember my grandmother saying that everyone she had things in common with had died. She was 100 years old at the time. As I approach 80 this year I am beginning to understand. I have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren but they will never be able to understand my past.

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We must tend to our friends while we can. We all will be gone at some point. Losing those we love is always difficult. But, who knows maybe I will go first and it won’t be a problem!?!

The elusive memory

by worrylessjourney, posted in change, connections, consequences, coping, feelings, memories, moments, PTSD, remember, remembering

The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves, they find their own order…the continuous thread of revelation.  Eudora Welty

Our lives move forward on a continuum. Events happen every day. Some events are memorable and some are not. I have always found it interesting the things we have stored away and can recall and the things we can’t. Our memories are selective. Our brains store information….probably everything we ever did but most of it cannot be recalled.

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I have been asked about my earliest memory. I have a memory but it is not really clear. I am standing in a crib in my mother and father’s room. That is all there is. There is no context…nothing more than that. I don’t know why I have that memory. It seems to have no significance but there it is.

Image result for memoryOf course we remember traumatic events or days of special happiness but we don’t always remember the specifics and our memories will usually not match those of others who were there.

It is also interesting how memories can be triggered by other senses. A certain smell can cause recall. I grew up in Virginia and my family had large privet hedges around the back yard. When I smell privet it brings back memories of that place.

Music can remind us of a particular time that we heard it. We also experience the feelings associated with those memories. This can be a good thing but in the case of persons who have had a trauma it can bring it all back full force. That is what happens to those with PTSD. The memory comes with all the feelings of fear and horror.

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How our brain keeps memories and which ones come to light is not fully known but more is learned each day.

 

 

 

Lasting Memories

by worrylessjourney, posted in appreciate, blessings, celebrate, children, choices, create, enjoy, holidays, little things, memories, remember

My husband loves Christmas. He can’t wait until the tree is up and the decorations out. He bought the tree while I was in the hospital but had it delivered after I came home. It is now up and decorated. (which he did) I am good but still some tired.

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I managed to get enough energy to do some of the other decorations and things look pretty nice. We have pared down some over the years and don’t over do.

If we strictly followed our church’s thought we would not put up decorations until Christmas Eve and keep them up for the 12 days of Christmas ending on Epiphany. When I was a child my father and I would walk into the woods and cut a tree on Christmas Eve. That was such an exciting time for me. Just spending time with my father doing something special was enough. I remember it with such fond memories.

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I hope we were able to give those kind of memories to our own children. These are things that can’t be duplicated. Expensive gifts are nothing compared to time spent with parents. It is so wonderful when we spend time with our own children playing, what I call, “remember when….the time the dog opened most of the presents under the tree during the night??” Those are the things that last.

Spend on memories not things. The memories last.

Burned books

by worrylessjourney, posted in anxiety, belief, books, consequences, feelings, labels, memories, misunderstanding, remember

Recently a college near us ran into some controversy. A novelist came to read a selection from her recent book and students protested and burned copies of the book.

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The book is:

The novel, Make Your Home Among Strangers, is by Jennine Capó Crucet, ​an English professor at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, who came to the Statesboro, Ga., campus last Wednesday to read “Imagine Me Here, or How I Became a Professor,” an essay included in the novel, according to a statement from Crucet.

Make Your Home Among Strangers was selected among a list of recommended readings for freshmen as part of Georgia Southern’s first-year experience program. It is the story of a first-generation American born to Cuban immigrant parents who is accepted into an elite university and is rejected by her family as well as the white students at the college.

Students were offended  by some of her statements about white privilege and staged the protest. The school responded with statements.

Vice President for Strategic Communications and Marketing John Lester wrote in an email. Book burning does not align with Georgia Southern’s values, Lester told USA Today. But the university does uphold students’ rights to assert their freedom of expression, he said.

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I cannot disagree with the students right to protest. However, I was a young child about 5 years old at the end of WWII. I am sure I didn’t remember much then but as I grew older and understood Hitler’s policies I was appalled by the burning of books. The episode at the school triggered memories of burning books and banning books. This, for me, is a reminder of where things are headed when we are told what we can and cannot read.

These students were not around when books were burned to remove freedoms. They don’t have experience of thoughts being limited and controlled. I know that was not their intention but I am always anxious when I hear about books being burned.

 

Memories–always there

by worrylessjourney, posted in aging, comfort, connections, coping, gratitude, life changes, memories, patterns, remember

Memories

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Memories
Things remembered
Never lost

Childhood
Days seemed forever
Time moved slowly

Teens
Endless life
Untouchable, invulnerable

Marriage
Love, passion, caring
Too quickly passing

Children
Growing, changing, becoming
Then suddenly….gone

Now marriage
Secure, comfortable
Loving, aging

Growing older
Vulnerable health
Fast passing

Memories
Always present
Always, always

57 years

by worrylessjourney, posted in aging, appreciate, connections, enjoy, family, gratitude, joy, life changes, memories, remember, the past, unconditional love

This past weekend my husband and I celebrated our 57th wedding anniversary. It is almost impossible to think that we have been married for so long. Where did the time go? It really doesn’t seem that long ago…and yet a lot of people have no idea what life was like in 1962.

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For me it seemed ideal although looking at it now I wonder how. My husband was a new officer just graduated from West Point and beginning some training. He was in paratrooper school and went on to ranger training. During ranger training he was gone. How in the world did I think that was ideal. I guess I was living in a bubble of newly wed happiness. I think the saving grace was having other wives going through the same thing and us becoming friends. Friends were made quickly as we all needed support. We were lucky as our husbands had known each other at West Point and that made it easier.

Our life in the service was challenging. We moved often and I was alone a good bit. Some things were wonderful…the birth of our first child…language school in Monterey…living in Panama, Central America.

 

Times were also tough with spending two different years alone with children while my husband served in Viet Nam. I don’t know how I managed the worry but I seemed to cope with the stress and loneliness. Children are wonderful companions but they don’t replace a beloved spouse.

Our last tour was a joy. My husband went to graduate school and then taught math at West Point.  It was an amazing experience.

There have been many years and many different jobs for each of us since his retirement from the military and life has been good. Our three adult children, their spouses, our six grandchildren, one great grandchild and one on the way have added great joy.

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57 years. Amazing!

Bravery and fear go together

by worrylessjourney, posted in acceptance, appreciate, compassion, coping, fear, remember, viewpoint

 

Bravery comes from the things we fear. We are only brave when we face something that we fear. Being able to step forward into a situation that worries us means that we can put the fear aside. We learn how to do this from the struggles we have had in the past. Each thing that has gone wrong in our lives has been a learning experience. We moved past those experiences and survived.

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Nobody wants to go through difficulties in life but they do help us to grow. The growth gives us the coping skills to manage the next problem that confronts us.  We not only learn how to manage but it helps us to understand others who are going through the same things. We have more compassion.

Think about the things that have troubled you in life and how you got through them. They have made you stronger and more compassionate. Don’t dwell on them as negative things but appreciate them for the things you have learned.

Remember when?

by worrylessjourney, posted in change, life changes, memories, moments, remember, the past, viewpoint

A friend and I were reminiscing yesterday and I wanted to share some memories from the “ancient person.”

I remember lying in front of our fireplace and listening to the radio. Yes radio! Fun programs like “Let’s pretend, The Shadow, Fibber Magee and Molly, and many more. There was something enchanting about picturing the stories in your own mind.

I remember watching TV for the first time. Of course black and white, tiny screen.

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I remember playing outside in the twilight..Kick the Can, Hide and Seek.

milk truckI remember visiting my Aunt and seeing the horse drawn milk delivery truck. The horse knew the route and moved to the next stop while the man took the milk to the door and picked up the empty bottles to be washed and used again. She lived in what was a small town at that time.

 

I remember standing in my front yard (on a main highway) and watching convoys of military vehicles going to a nearby post. I was quite young but still remember this from WWII.

I remember hanging clothes on the line outside to dry and running to bring them in if it started to rain.

I remember, in my teens, taking a bus to Washington DC, (we lived in the suburbs) and visiting the museums and Smithsonian. Taking the bus home and being perfectly safe.

I remember watching the McCarthy hearings and being upset that people could be treated that way.

It was a different view of the world.

St Valentine💖

by worrylessjourney, posted in learn, remember, story, Uncategorized

I though it might be interesting to look at one of the stories surrounding St. Valentine. He has been retained as a Saint by the Catholic church and there are many versions of his life. This is one of them.

St. Valentine, the Real Story

Flowers, candy, red hearts and romance. That’s what Valentine’s day is all about, right? Well, maybe not.

The origin of this holiday for the expression of love really isn’t romantic at all—at least not in the traditional sense. Father Frank O’Gara of Whitefriars Street Church in Dublin, Ireland, tells the real story of the man behind the holiday—St. Valentine.

“He was a Roman Priest at a time when there was an emperor called Claudias who persecuted the church at that particular time,” Father O’Gara explains. ” He also had an edict that prohibited the marriage of young people. This was based on the hypothesis that unmarried soldiers fought better than married soldiers because married soldiers might be afraid of what might happen to them or their wives or families if they died.”

“I think we must bear in mind that it was a very permissive society in which Valentine lived,” says Father O’Gara. “Polygamy would have been much more popular than just one woman and one man living together. And yet some of them seemed to be attracted to Christian faith. But obviously the church thought that marriage was very sacred between one man and one woman for their life and that it was to be encouraged. And so it immediately presented the problem to the Christian church of what to do about this.”

“The idea of encouraging them to marry within the Christian church was what Valentine was about. And he secretly married them because of the edict.”

Valentine was eventually caught, imprisoned and tortured for performing marriage ceremonies against command of Emperor Claudius the second. There are legends surrounding Valentine’s actions while in prison.

“One of the men who was to judge him in line with the Roman law at the time was a man called Asterius, whose daughter was blind. He was supposed to have prayed with and healed the young girl with such astonishing effect that Asterius himself became Christian as a result.”

In the year 269 AD, Valentine was sentenced to a three part execution of a beating, stoning, and finally decapitation all because of his stand for Christian marriage. The story goes that the last words he wrote were in a note to Asterius’ daughter. He inspired today’s romantic missives by signing it, “from your Valentine.”

“What Valentine means to me as a priest,” explains Father O’Gara, “is that there comes a time where you have to lay your life upon the line for what you believe. And with the power of the Holy Spirit we can do that —even to the point of death.”

Valentine’s martyrdom has not gone unnoticed by the general public. In fact, Whitefriars Street Church is one of three churches that claim to house the remains of Valentine. Today, many people make the pilgrimage to the church to honor the courage and memory of this Christian saint.

Written by David Kithcart of CBN