Do we reminisce too much about the good old days when they probably weren't that good?
I ask because I find myself looking backwards more and more. I find myself reminiscing and talking about the past and now I'm writing about it. Listening to Angela Bishop's excellent presentation to our forget me not cafe on Tuesday, I realised that I had mentioned very similar things in my autobiography.
So as we get older should we be dwelling in or on the past? Was it so much better than the present and was it much safer than the future?
My problem is that in looking back we tend to view everything with a rosy glow. We talked on Tuesday about the dreadfully cold winter of 1963 when we regularly had ice on the inside of windows. Everyone nodded and smiled because they remembered this. But was it really enjoyable? Was being permanently cold enjoyable? Or was it just a case of "in those days we were much tougher than we are now." Do we turn unpleasant things into pleasant memories?
I cant help thinking of the Monty Python sketch about the Yorkshiremen who try to outdo each other in how hard their lives have been. If you don't know what I'm talking about you can find the sketch on You Tube. I know people who seem to glory in the fact that they haven't done something for a long time. Does this strike a bell with you?
"Do you know I haven't been to the pictures for 10 years?"
"I can't remember the last time I went out for a meal."
As you get older your perception of life changes.
Ask somebody in their late 20s or early 30s what they see themselves doing in 10 years time and they will outline just what they want their world to be like.
Ask a much older person the same question and they don't have to think too long before saying "I hope to still be breathing."
But of course we are all prone to nostalgia - and why not. We have had literally hundreds of messages of congratulations on the birth of Lyla Louise (who I will now be calling Lyla Lou- just because I can and because I make up silly names for all the grandchildren). Elliot was spanner for a while and then Elliegrot and Poppy was many variations of Poppa Doodle Doo. I can be very childish when I try. Actually I can be very childish when I don't try.
I think a really interesting question would be "where do you see yourself 10 years ago." Now this isn't as stupid a question as it might seem. I have always said that we get nostalgic as we get older. We talk about the ice on the inside of the windows, the really cold winters and the really hot summers and we talk about all the things that have made up our lives. But do we ever question whether at all points of our lives we are where we would have wanted to be.
I wanted to be a teacher. That was when I became sensible and dropped ideas of being a professional footballer and speedway rider. But somehow the written word took over. I can't remember when I became significantly interested in the written word to think to myself "I would like to be a journalist." There was no one moment. It was just something that seemed to creep up on me as thoughts of being a teacher slid away. Sometimes I wonder whether I would be a different person now if I had been a teacher rather than a writer.
I think it strange and somehow disappointing that I cannot remember how and why I decided that I wanted to be a professional writer in some form or other. It's an interesting idea to go backwards in time and consider whether you would want anything to be different. On the whole I'm reasonably happy with what I achieved although I think if I could go back I would prefer to have been working in a caring capacity rather than in the world of emergency media.
What I would say to young people today is make a definite decision about what you want to do and don't just drift into areas that you might later regret.
Now I know I talked about whether we should embroil ourselves in nostalgia but I'm afraid 2024 is going to be my year of nostalgia, pretty much because I want to get everything in my life in order. Don't worry, that doesn't mean I'm planning in shuffling off just yet. I just want to have everything shipshape and Bristol fashion and in order. I want to get all my memories in order, all my photographs in order, all my genealogy in order and in one place rather than being scattered everywhere.
The problem is my butterfly brain. I will start on one project - eg getting all my Hethersett Herald files on one computer or one portable drive and then I will see something and start thinking "That would be a good thing to do for the next 30 minutes" and off I will go at a tangent.
I would so love to get my life in order from day one to day 26,000. But will I do it? I have a feeling that in my blog this time next year I will still be saying the same things and rueing the fact that another year has escaped.
Yesterday for example I had a real butterfly brain morning, flitting from one thing to another. We received some more proud parent photographs from our son and daughter in law and have booked trains to visit them in Early January. I detest driving in traffic and so the train can take the strain - if they are running of course. That done I found a contact from somebody in America we haven't been in touch with for decades and it was lovely to hear from them and see their photograph but it took me off in another direction entirely and meant I shelved other things I needed to do. The last time we saw Rob he would have been about 12. This was during our first swap of houses with America. We became firm friends with Rob's parents Bud and Mary-Louise and returned when we had our own children and went camping in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Over the years we kept in touch (usually at Christmas) but Bud sadly died a number of years ago. I remember him as a charismatic extrovert, dressed in a red jacket and always always smiling. I remember Mary-Louise as a wonderful pianist and Rob, their son, as a sharp intelligent young boy.
Young boys grow up and I tried to work out how old Rob now is. He must be in his fifties which is much older than his father was when we first met them. Looking at his photograph Rob could easily pass for late thirties.
The point of this is that the Fisher family were part of our life story and that's what I want to bring out in 2024. I have my autobiography to publish, I have my blogs, I have my diaries, I have photographs and so it's all there, it just needs to be put into some kind of order. And as I put it into order other memories will hopefully surface. What I do with them is anyone's guess. I just need to get them into some kind of real order.
Well that's about enough for today. Tomorrow I will tell you about our visit to Norwich to see the film Wonka and to do a few more pre-Christmas things.