As far as a person can go back, there’s always some good memories in their mind, done more beautiful when they get old. Why? Maybe as time goes by, all around bad feelings have been a little erased, a bit falsified to make the memory be what it should have been, I mean a good old memory!
Of course, there are some forgotten memories, others not significative enough to be stored in a little place of mind. But anyway, good old memories help you to remember a time that’s over, a time when you were younger, in a better health (and wealth!), with long hair, a thin body, a face with no wrinkles, a time when your kids were babies, your home a simple box with two windows, etc! That time has been yours, an incredibly yours, full of bad and good experiences, and it looks like no one else.
Should you have changed things if ever you could have known what life taught us since your youth? The answer is up to you. In a way, it’s rather more comfortable to think that the next life will be better, as if you just have drawn a draft in that one. This is what you could reach: making the best in this life, to make the next one better. That’s the reason why memories seem to be so precious, so great: as you remind some events and moments of your life, you’re able to make a difference now: would you live an old bad experience just for fun? Nope! I think we all spend life to learn about everything just in case the event should come back: we would be prepared to fight against it or to lead it up to the aim. Don’t you think?
Getting older should mean to be wise, soft, kind, smart and so on. It’s not always the case! But despite some different and wide range of cultural ways of living on Earth, getting older means to get a memory of an area that doesn’t exist anymore, being a print of that time. Ask an older person around you, to talk about their youth, war, marriage, job, etc… what do you notice? Their memories give them a smile, they seem to rebirth to their youth, to live their life again. They feel so enthusiastic, so peaceful and happy that it comes to your mind as an evidence: memories help to get older!
As hard it seems to be, getting older must not be seen as a punishment nor a restricted way of living. Sure, you can’t do everything as in the past, but the reverse is true as well: now you’ve got a bigger knowledge, more time, or more wealth to do things you didn’t dare to think about in the past even.
This is a privilege to get old, a privilege to be able to remember anything you lived, a privilege to say “I remember…” Being grateful and thankful for it means you have understood the meaning of life.
Love,
Jane