Remembering

Lately, my conversation has been remembering things from my past. This doesn’t mean everything was about things I’ve done, no, some of it was remembering about a world less complicated. Kids were a dream with wondering what kind of people they would be. Times when politics actually made since instead of the modern-day shit or clown show going on. A time when I never had a single thought about a bill being paid. Thoughts about college and the wonderment of learning something that might be what I do for life. No, come to think of it, that was stressful, and I remember the anxiety I felt. But remembering isn’t always about less complication, but just a time that left an impression. How does a seventeen-year-old boy decide what it is he will do for the rest of his life? I eventually went into the military, but it was still too early to decide on a career, no matter how hard the recruiter tried to sugarcoat the greatness of the job they were essentially picking for me. Many things rolling through my mind constantly to distract from today’s reality of too much to do and so much time needed to do it. One thing you begin to think about as you get older is time. Do I have enough left to get these things done and still enjoy it? We don’t know how long we’ll live, but when you know you’re in the latter stages of life, you want to maximize that time with things you have dreamt of all your life.

Part of remembering is wondering. Wondering leads to questions. Questions lead to doubt or maybe positivity. I suppose my remembering has been heightened by my dad’s own remembering. At eighty-three, I’m sure his thoughts and feeling about time are amplified a hundred-fold above mine. Every ache or ailment is a wondering of whether it is what might be the end. I see my dad enjoying some financial freedom finally, but he is hampered by his body’s ability to do what he dreamed of most of his life. I think for dad, that would be to finally have the restored old car of his dream and ride around in it. Obviously, so that it would enhance his own inner conversation of remembering, but also self-fulfillment. I’ve often thought about buying him a 1957 Chevrolet two-door hardtop, and as much as he would appreciate driving it, it wouldn’t fill the dream of making it come true for himself. I guess that is the thing about remembering, they are personal dreams, thoughts, and ambitions. Somebody else fulfilling them doesn’t complete the story, in fact, it might just be a sample of what could have been had life turned out a little different. I’m not sure any of my kids look at me and wonder if they could fill a wish or dream because I think they all believe I have the ability on my own. Probably true and I would certainly be more fulfilled in doing it myself. I’m digressing big time, but that is what happens with an active mind. Thoughts come and go at their own pace and control. LOL, am I trying to say we don’t always have control over our own thoughts? Maybe I am or at least, we sometimes can’t stop the derailment.

I thought yesterday morning as I was having a cup of Caramel Crunch coffee, why do I love coffee so much? It is a memory without any doubt. The Caramel Crunch thing is a teasing knock towards my daughter and her husband. It seems everything is flavored and all I want is to enjoy the simplicity of the basic essence of a cup of coffee. I admittedly state for the record, the Caramel Crunch flavor is pretty good. She’ll correct me on what flavor it actually is and I would have gone over and looked at the bag before writing, but it is in the trash and I don’t feel like raccooning around in the trash for it. Side bar, I just looked up the urban meaning of raccooning, maybe it doesn’t apply here as I’m making no reference about receiving oral sex from a woman, then striking her in each eye after climax. Really, there is such a thing and people actually do it. Really? Maybe, I should have said rummaging in their trash! Which reminds me it is time for a second cup of cereal flavored coffee. The memory, the old one, not the new one, was from a time when I would drink coffee with Maw. She had a cup that had my favorite childhood western hero, Hopalong Cassidy, embossed on the side. I would get a little coffee mixed with my milk, but man, it was so good. She taught me how to take a drink slirpingly, and then say “aaahhh” afterwards. Remembering coffee for the first time and the wanting a cup as soon as my feet hit the floor. It is still why it is the first thing I do every morning, although the coffee to milk ratio has changed a bit.

I mentioned remembering the wonderment of the people my kids would become. I never imagined them as young, but instead they were always at the age they are now. Funny, imagining someone older than you are yourself. I wondered about the relationship I would have, what they did for a living, how much they would change the world. The thoughts went on and on. Was I close? Not really. But I am still in awe at who and what they have all become. I don’t remember thinking about what gender they’d be, and their appearance was always non-descript, but they were real in my mind, and I was proud of them years before they came into existence. With my current family structure in mind, I never thought about a blended family. When I was growing up, I knew only one family where the parents had gotten a divorce. I later was made aware of families that had gone through it, but it certainly wasn’t as commonplace as it has been over the last twenty years. Staying together has less odds than divorce, that is sad. Anyway, I remember there wasn’t sadness or strife in my kids lives. Now, Jen and I struggle with hearing of the troubles our kids experience. It is hard to be a non-partisan bystander as we still want to fix things for them, instead we must watch and be ready to help pick up the pieces with them.

I remember not thinking about walking a mile or running and jumping. It was just natural. Now I wonder if I’ll break something for being stupid and believing something different about myself than is real. I think a lot about playing football, basketball, and baseball. My love of sport was huge. Now I struggle to climb a ladder and balance on it while screwing a screw into the wall. Maybe it is as we grow older, we become more aware of gravity and the impact it has on us. I no longer try to defy gravity. I have let myself become subject to its power on my body and the effects it might have if I put myself into a situation of experiencing the pull it has on me.

I don’t have many memories to share today and certainly I won’t get into todays politics, but will say I just been caught up more and more thinking about the past and the thoughts I had then. Maybe it is an accounting of the then and now and how many things came true. It is easier said about those things because there are so few things that turned out as I had dreamed. I guess we can’t always be the puppeteers in our life, but occasionally we get to manipulate the strings of life and make a dream a memory worth remembering, mostly I feel something else is in control of our path.