Remember being a child, waiting for something exciting? Remember how you couldn’t get your mind off that something, no matter how hard you tried? Remember how there was clarity in your joy and purity in your anticipation?
Remember when the something happened? Remember how your world stopped for just a second, how you felt full from the pleasure of the something? Remember?
And why can’t we have this now? What knowledge do we have that destroys the clarity and purity of a child’s joy in the something exciting? What cynicism have we burdened ourselves with to destroy this jewel of experience?
Oh, Sarah, this post makes me so sad. These moments are there for us grownups, too. There were many years I didn’t have them, but I do now, when I just stop for a few minutes.
http://mreitemeyer.blogspot.com/2006/06/does-it-get-any-better-than-this.html
Perhaps my perfect moment is not the same event-excitement you meant (like Christmas), but it is that perfect joy and hovering-of-time experience of something long awaited.
I wish I could bottle it and send you some.
{hugs}
That’s interesting that you found it sad, Michelle. What I was feeling was not so much sad as nostalgic (which I think is an inevitable side effect of both motherhood and aging). I have been exploring, in the playground of my own mind, the innocence of childhood and the path back to it.
Isn’t nostalgia always a bit sad? Isn’t there always a sense of longing and a sense of loss when we think about the past?
I’m in my mid-thirties and my husband is a few years older. We’ve already begun reminiscing about the college days, the early married days…it is a bit wistful. But what tempers the “grief” over what we no longer have is the knowledge of what we’ve gained (our family) and the hope for the future (hopefullly one day without children at home…but grandchildren…etc).
Yes, I suppose sadness is a part of nostalgia – it’s a cocktail of quite a few emotions. There are many things that I look back on with relief that they’re over, but as you point out, there are others that inspire that sense of loss. There’s also hope for me, as I look back, because I can see that I’ve come so far (and then, inevitably, I think of just how far I have to go).