Community Chat

[golding76]

Lindsay's Grandma, for some reason I revisited this post for the first time in days.  I think I was meant to respond to you and others who understood my nostalgia for better times.  I think I need to make clear, though, that I still laugh a lot and enjoy my family and basic joys found in living.  There is happiness in seeing the beauty in nature, attending a great concert, having a baby surprise you with a toothless grin.  Oh yes, I am still receptive to all these delicious things.

However, I am very realistic and am not afraid to acknowledge that my golden period has come and gone.  Everything has its season -- and one's "golden period" is defined by one's values, I think.   For me, real happiness was having my husband alive and all of our family living an ordinary life.   There was such quiet joy in our days.  I valued those moments when they occurred, and I now honor them in memories.

C. S. Lewis wrote about loss in A Grief Observed.  I read the book many years ago, but the gist was that genuine love has risk attached, and the the deal is that the greater the love, the greater the grief when there is loss.  It is nothing new under the sun, and loss happens to all.  I realize this, but I also know that the particular period that fulfilled most of my dreams and yearnings has passed.  That's life, as Frank Sinatra sang.  I am okay, though.  THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONCERN.  What a dear you are.

[Susan in California]

@golding76

I was very touched by your well-written post.  I totally understand.

Those years when a family is all together just living a wonderful, normal

(busy) life are truly special years. 

Our sons are married and on their own with their families.  I am so happy for them,

and I am happy as well.  But I totally understand what you mean.

I should read the book you referenced by CS Lewis.

At a very, very low time in my life when I had had a stillborn son, I read Mark

Twain's autobiography.  It helped me so much because there was so much sadness.  Literature of all kinds helps during difficult times.  A friend always recommended Shakespeare--the tradgedies- when in grief.

It sounds like you still very much enjoy life, but there is a wistfulness remembering some very special years.

The best to you....Susan

[daisyk]

This is a great topic and I'm very interested in reading everyone's responses. I don't think I can pick a decade really. I always think of the line from Kenny Rogers The Gambler-" cause every hands a winner and every hands a loser and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep". It sounds negative, but I guess that's what I think-it's always a mixed bag. The 90's were great because I met my husband, had my first daughter but she died when she was 6 months old,-worst time of my life, then in 1999 had my second daughter who has been a great gift to me. I guess I feel that I'm the best person now that I've ever been and hope only to improve. I will say I have looked a lot better than I do now, but only so much I can do about that- Onward and upward!

[LilacTree]

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@daisyk wrote:

This is a great topic and I'm very interested in reading everyone's responses. I don't think I can pick a decade really. I always think of the line from Kenny Rogers The Gambler-" cause every hands a winner and every hands a loser and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep". It sounds negative, but I guess that's what I think-it's always a mixed bag. The 90's were great because I met my husband, had my first daughter but she died when she was 6 months old,-worst time of my life, then in 1999 had my second daughter who has been a great gift to me. I guess I feel that I'm the best person now that I've ever been and hope only to improve. I will say I have looked a lot better than I do now, but only so much I can do about that- Onward and upward!

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@daisyk

Oh my, I am so sorry to hear that you lost your baby . . . I can't imagine anything worse.  Please accept my sincere condolences.  I am happy to hear, however, that you did have another baby daughter and she is fine.  Yes, a great gift which you deserved.  My best thoughts go out to you for your strength.

[LilacTree]

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@Lindsays Grandma wrote:

Goldie76...I feel your words, I feel you.  I wish I could express myself the way you did.  One thing I can do is to hope you still find a lot of happiness now and in the future.

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@golding76 wrote:

I adore this question, Lilac Tree.  Many times I have reflected on the happiest period(s) of my life, and, without hesitation, I claim the '80s, too.  However, the '90s were a close second.

In the '80s I not only achieved a high point in my career but also became pregnant for the first time.  Then two more pregnancies followed.  Dreams and desires were fulfilled  My late husband established his own company by the end of the decade, and our sons were doing well academically and socially.   For most of the decade I was a stay-at-home mother who relished every moment of such an existence!   I never once took it for granted -- honestly.  There were part-time gigs, in different periods, but nothing that would intrude with family time, which I treasured.

The '90s were filled with joy and fulfillment, too.  We were fine and happy until 2001.  Everything fell apart for us a couple weeks after 9/11.  Our sorrow for that tragic date was compounded by personal tragedy.  We have never really returned to who we were.

I HATE THIS NEW CENTURY!  I know, I know try to be positive and all that, but I know my best years are behind me.  I'm mature and can adjust to the losses one experiences when aging, but I find it hard to digest that my happiest moments are in the rear-view mirror.

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@Lindsays Grandma@golding76

I have to say I agree wholeheartedly with this paragraph.  I have lived through seven decades, almost eight now, and yes, so far this is the worst.  Nothing seems to make sense anymore. 

I still love and am loved, and on that personal level, I can keep going.  But my years are numbered in the single digits . . . and that goes fast.  I am grateful for every day now, as well as all the happy times of the past.

Goldie's right . . . everything changed since 9/11.  Sitting on the floor in my boss's office watching the towers fall, we looked at each other, tears streaming down our faces and said not a word.

However, when one thinks of it, we were lucky even to be born and have a life at all . . . odds are probably in the billions. 

[I am still oxox]

I would say 1990s i was a newly wed, we traveled and both my parents were alive and well, my only sadness is that we should of moved to where we are now to be closer to my folks before they started to need us more than we needed them

[golding76]

just bee, Susan in California and Lilac Tree, thank you for your understanding of what I am trying to say.  This whole topic of life, personal happiness and the state of the world is very hard to distill into a few words.

When you think about 9/11 and all the changes that followed after that fateful day, you can lose your breath and your sanity.  If you consider the financial outlay that our quest for security has demanded, you realize why so many social programs are in jeopardy and many jobs have vanished.  It is costly to protect us.  I wouldn't want it any other way, of course, but it is tragic that money that once went to life-enhancing goals now MUST be used (and I agree, it must) to protect us.  Just think of the multiple circles that surround the crowd in NYC for the dropping of the crystal ball on New Year's.  NYC has to pay for the personnel employed and the materials used -- a whopping sum that never was in its budget before.

Following 9/11, airplanes had to be retrofitted to protect the cockpit and so on and so on...   And it never ends.  What about all the safety features where you work?  If you are still in the workplace, you know what has been added -- and costs.  Everything costs money that once went elsewhere. 

Of course nothing is as horrific as the loss of life that occurred on 9/11 and has followed.  The world has been made an ugly place.  We must struggle to focus on the beauty that we have.  I find that when I am grateful for all that I have, I can, for a moment, wipe away most of the sorrow of loss and fear for the future.  That "attitude of gratitude" is golden.

[golding76]

Susan in California, I sympathize deeply with the loss of your stillborn son.  I wrote that I had three pregnancies, but I miscarried one child (a boy) at 20 weeks.   So, even during my so-called golden period there was some great sadness.

I do believe that literature and, believe it or not, music that touches your innermost self, help you emerge from your dark periods.  Tragedies are cathartic, something the ancient Greeks knew very well. 

You sound like a wise woman.

[hovis]

The late 60s and early 70s. These were my college years. I was very happy then. Met someone very special and we dated for about 3 years and then I asked him to make a committment and he said he no. So I told him not to call me anymore and he didn't. I got over it and then found the man of my dreams. I think of that special time in my life quite often. And have very fond memories. 

[151949]

@hovis  I was in nursing school from 1966 to 1969 and those were such happy years. I was not attached to any romantic interest most of that time and I dated who I wanted for the first time in my life. All through High school I "went steady"  with the same boy and after we broke up I really enjoyed the freedom to see other guys and meet a lot of different people.I wasn't even interested in looking for a committed relationship at that time - just in meeting people and expanding my mind. Then one day my car broke down and I had to call AAA for a tow truck and my life was changed forever - I met the love of my life when that tow truck arrived.I was happily married and had a stepson & daughter a year later.