Recently I was on a vacation in California and since my husband and I hadn’t done the beautiful “coast drive” in years we decided to go for it and visit many places we were nostalgic for. Well, I know I’m getting older, so of course my memory is spotty, but I think I might have filled in those spotty areas with better memories. Anyway, I’ve decided that some memories are just better off as, just that, great memories and you’d be better off if you don’t try to re-live them because you might be disappointed!
It was hilarious. Here we are driving in Big Sur, one of my favorite places on the planet, and we happen to pull into an Inn which we stayed at a few times many years ago and loved. When we first pulled in I said maybe we shouldn't stay the night as we were trying to get to San Francisco, but my husband said let's just stay. Of course he knows me too well… I would have been bitchin for weeks afterwards that we had the opportunity but we were rushed as always and missed it. So we booked a room. We got a “cute” room that was very much like a bunkhouse or a camp (except unlike camping you pay a lot of money for this “rustic” experience). I am telling you the bathroom was so tiny (or maybe we were so much "smaller" 25 years ago)…it was a very tight squeeze. We took a nice, long walk in the woods behind us and waited for the magical experience from years past. Something was missing. I couldn't put my finger on it. Well, the last time we were there was a very long time ago so I guess we were in a different mindset - the only thing we were taking to “alter our state” was cholesterol pills and an occasional martini. I noticed that there seem to be a lot of older "hippies" or people our age but still dressing in tie-dyes and sporting long hair. I asked my husband if it was my imagination or were there a lot more “young people” around this place in the old days and he filled me in that the young people who wanted a camping experience could go down the road to the campground for 25 bucks…remember we pay “big” for this experience.
I really got to thinking about a lot of things that seem so different now that I’m older. When I go home and visit places I played as a kid they seem so much smaller than I remember. The pond we skated on used to seem gigantic and I now I realize it’s the size of a puddle. In the woods we used to play in there was "the big hole", which is more of a little ditch. The town fair they held every year was "huge", it is in fact only a few rides, some lemonade and cotton candy if you’re lucky.
I guess what I’m saying is that some things are best left to our memories and in those certain cases where those memories start to fade, remember, you can always just re-work them to create even better ones. Why not give it a try?
BUZZ
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