Happy Days
I’ve always loved to stroll down Memory Lane remembering happy times in the past. As Naomi was here with me this weekend we naturally did a lot of that.
We talked about some of the holidays we’d spent together, like the first time we visited Sydney more than 30 years ago and some of the things we remembered from the trip. The games we played on the long bus trip to keep ourselves amused, the apartment we stayed at in Kings Cross and the time that the two-dollar note she was using to pay for her fare on a ferry blew out of her hand and into Sydney Harbour. Little things but we remember them vividly.
We love to chat about funny things that Mum or David did, pets we used to have, our days working for the railways together and happy times on steam train trips around South Australia and Victoria, going to the speedway or the Grand Prix in Adelaide. Reminiscing about old times is like opening a photo album and being transported back in time by the images. It’s one of the reasons I like to take photos but even if you don’t, talking about old times helps preserve the memories I think.
Naomi works in a multi-purpose health centre which includes an aged care facility and she told me about some of the residents who have since passed away. We talked about dementia and how difficult it must be for people who are physically fit and active but can no longer do the things that they used to do because of it.
It seems that when we start to lose our memories the short term ones go long before the early ones do. Even I find that while I might not remember where I put my keys, what my bank PIN number is, or why I entered a certain room I can recall clearly some things that happened forty or more years ago. I get a great deal of pleasure from recalling the people, pets and places that have been a part of my life, whatever the future holds for me I know I have these.
Our Other Blog: Two Sisters and Two Points of View 
Beautiful stroll!
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Thanks for sharing some of your memories with us! As to memory loss, we knew of a young man in our area who had a stroke at age 50 and lost five years of his memory. During that “blank” time he’d gotten married and started a small business, so quite important data to lose.
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It is very strange the way the mind works isn’t it?
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My typo mistake. He wasn’t fifty — he was thirty.
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That is very sad.
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I am younger but I know what you mean when you said “forgetting why I entered a certain room”. I have had this happen too. I think this is still normal. I actually once looked for a pen and realized minutes later that I had it in one of my hands. Lol? It doesn’t happen often but I had these moments in my life. It’s probably also easier now as we are constantly “connected”… phone rings, other things that are distracting, too much stuff going on in life, everybody wants something from you, stress, multitasking and so on.
I see it the same way as you, I like to talk about memories. What defines me as a human, is what I experienced in my life and what I experienced with other people. The majority of people I know like to think back but I also noticed a few people saying things like “I don’t care, that is the past, I live now”. I can’t grasp that… it strikes me as apathetic.
Dementia, of course, is something else. But I mean people who don’t have dementia.
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I think things like forgetting where you put something or what you intended to do are not memory loss so much as a result of too many distractions or stress. For example when I was packing up to move I was constantly putting down and losing my scissors and packing tape. Obviously I was very stressed at the time.
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I also enjoy a trip down Memory Lane. Great pics! Thanks for sharing! 💙
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