Monday 15 October 2018

A Journey into the Depths of Nostalgia

Every once in a while I have a day, or part of one, where my legs are on strike.  I can walk but can't really control my direction.  I had one yesterday and chose to stay in bed...pillows behind my back, TV remote close by and an almost-finished book.  It looked like it was going to be a good day.  And in a strange way it was.

David brought up a couple of boxes from our locker, left them on the bed with a grin and a message that I could either attack those boxes, full of photos, or just leave them there.

I chose to open the boxes.

As I knew they would be, the photos, not looked at since we moved here 10 years ago, were immediate pulls on my heart-strings. I didn't let that stop me, even though I should have known better. 

Photos of family, of friends, of visits and trips, of many Valentine's Days and gifts under Christmas trees, of weddings and post-funeral meetings, of my kids with their kids and a surprising number of people and places I couldn't recall.

I cried.  I waited for Dave to go downstairs again before I actually really cried. But I also laughed and told myself off for wearing something I had loved at the time, and noticed that I'm thinner now than I was in my 40s and 50s.

Partway through the action, Dave came in to see how I was doing on the decision-making.  "Decision-making?" I said.  "What do you want to keep, and what should go?" Dave explained.

I'm still laughing.

3 comments:

  1. What the heck is happening with those legs! -Kate

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    1. According to my doctor, and also the Mayo Clinic, it's to be expected for seniors, and at 76, I think I qualify. I don't fall over, I just move unmeaningly and somewhat clumsily to the right (mostly) or the left for a few steps before I'm back to my usual grace.

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  2. In a few years, we'll only have hard drives full of pictures to go through - a bigger pile of them, and less satisfying of course. My grandmother kept beautiful photo albums. They took less than a roll of film per year, but each one was lovingly labelled underneath, first and last names, dates and occasions. Now we take pictures of everything and will remember nothing.

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