Store Your Happy Memories Here:

[Croix]

Dear All~

What this place is for:
This thread is a tool, a resource, and also I guess a dash of entertainment.

I’ve found that when life is grim that sometimes thoughts of past happiness can create a chink of light in the grey overwhelming press of down. They can help occupy the mind with lighter reflections.

With that in view I invite people to set down a brief passage describing some happy event they look back to with fondness and peace.

They - and others too - can then return to it when they feel the need to glean a little warmth.

It is not a place for gloomy or dire tales, those can go elsewhere.

What to do:
Just set out, as simply as you like, your recollection of some past experience that means something good to you, something you enjoyed, something from safe times.

It can be, like my story below, anything – from an account of visiting grandparents to simply cooking and eating a melted-cheese sandwich in a favorite kitchen – you get to choose.

How to do it:
Write. Write enough so someone else can feel the mood, know what happened, find the goodness. (stop at 2,500 characters please!)

Grammar, syntax, spelling, punctuation are not compulsory, just write as you can – the only important thing is the content - not literary merit. Short or long - it does not matter.


I hope you enjoy, contribute and find a little distraction here when you need it.

Croix

[Croix]

Dear DB (and your Dad too I guess)~

Thanks for that, it obviously made a big impression on you and I suppose on your friend - is she still talking to you?

I agree about the black humor, though you have to be in that environment. A couple of family members were/are in A&E and it sure gives a different perspective.

Best I've done pole-wise is to back into one in the car, but no one there to laugh 😞

Croix

[Jayy]

The day I met my partner. We sat down next to yarra river, enjoying takeaway food and chatting.

[Croix]

Dear Jayy~

Thank you for sharing that memory.

For many of us that first meeting is a treasured time.

You've reminded me of when I met my partner, we had been corresponding and then met in a restaurant. Worked out well:)

Croix

[demonblaster]

haha Croix yeah surprisingly I managed when I finalllly stopped laughing, soothed her and we were good.

Real shame, we kept in touch for few yrs after (lol that's not the shame bit 🙂 I had a bad, so unfair leaving at that place we all nursed, lived (nurses home)& went out together & the clan there we got on so well with of course natural clashes at times, but understandable, she though had left the country but then in time we faded, she was one of my top friends ever. Never forgotten hope one day we meet again, I miss her a lot.

Yeah you really want someone there to laugh with in those awkward embarrassing times aye, even if it happens later the laughing 😄

[Croix]

Dear DB~

My fist wife was a nurse, trained and first worked from a nurses' home (drank Stone's Green Ginger Wine which was compulsory apparently, as well as becoming skilled at entry and exit via ground-floor windows). She gained lifelong friends there.

Did you ever do an on-line search for your friend?

Croix (who thought Stone's GGW was horrible)

[demonblaster]

haha yeah I was one of the ringleaders for the nightclubbing scene, wow, never no one to go out with, well one time actually so I forced myself to go alone, YIKES, being a chook too was hard, if a bloke goes out by themselves it's not really noticed but a chook, yeah she's out to be picked up.

Loven the compulsory Blagghhh ginger wine, with ya don't think I'd be on that one. Black Russians now we're talkin lol and ohhhh so many and other drinks too 😄 Good mems, was lucky didn't suffer hangovers as such.

Thanks yeah I tried on fb couple times, think she's married last I heard so possibly not on fb which would be surprised or hasn't put maiden name.

Friend also tried in other site too, stoked though am still very good friends with about 5 from there. We went through too much not to be, she was one that I went to America with, big thing. Really love her and a lot of others too but shame when some we lose touch with that mattered aye

[Guest_1055]

Hi Mr Croix and other kind folk....

I have been re living this happy memory every second day of last week. One of the reasons I am doing this particular thing is because it brings back memories.

I have been eating fresh corn on the cob. I love it. My father grew it when I was growing up. I remember seeing the tall tall stalks so straight. And quite a few of them growing close together. And creamy greenish tassels or whatever you call them on the tops of the cobs. Then I had to wait until they turned a more light browny colour. Then once they were that colour, they could be picked. So I remember the sort of snapping crunching sound as one picked off the cobs from the stalks. Then all the outer leaves needed to come off. Well the ones that we were going to have for lunch that day. Sometimes one might see a fat stripy grub in amongst the leaves, or even on the corn cobs. There would be a neat hole on the leaves sometimes. Those bits of the cob were the grubs had nibbled were broken off or the grub flicked off.

Then later on as you walked through the house towards the kitchen one could smell the corn cooking. I just loved the scent of it. And the corn always tasted so crisp and sweet. Very yummy...yummy.

So this brings me back to now, last week. I bought corn cobs, pulled all the outer leaves off. And placed the yellow cobs into boiling water. The scent of them cooking flooded our place. Then those past happy memories flooded back. I gave to be honest though this corn did not taste quite as sweet. But I still had my memory. And now I have decided to plant corn at my place. And I cannot hardly wait to pick and taste that.....

[Guest_5218]

I would like to share with you a happy memory of mine.

It was about, mmm not sure, but in excess of 20 years ago. I lived in the ACT at the time but was visiting my brother who lived on a farm. It was before either he or I married and I used to spend weekends out there quite regularly. I'd help out with whatever work needed doing on the farm and then head back home to the big smoke for my working week.

At the time I had a little dog similar to Holly, who I now have - her name was Tammie. Every morning I would get up early and take Tammie for a walk. The farmhouse was nestled into the side of a large hill with a creek running down the back the full length of the property. No neighbours nearby, just lovely and quiet and private. Just as I liked it.

This particular early morning we walked along picking our way over fences, through other obstacles and crossing over the creek as and when we needed to. Tammie was sniffing around and doing what she did so well, tracking rabbits. Everywhere was quiet and peaceful, just the soft sound of my feet in the long grass where I trod, and Tammie as she occasionally scampered off to inspect a rabbit burrow more closely. I didnt have a care in the world!

I came to a bend in the creek where floods over the years have formed high banks on one side, a lot of reeds on the opposite side and a large deep pool of water in between. It was here that I heard a faint splash of water and I stopped to look what had made the noise. I spotted a platypus swimming on the far side of the large pool of water. As I watched it popped its head up and looked in my direction. Then it ducked its head under water again with a splash and swam calmly away.

What a beautiful unique creature the platypus is. And very shy and elusive, with very few people having the pleasure of seeing them in the wild. I had the privilege of seeing it again, in fact a pair of them, some time later.

For me, this experience has become my 'safe place', where my imagination can take me when fear and emotions become too strong for me to handle. My psych taught me this technique before I underwent a series of highly traumatising and emotive Exposure Therapy a little over two years ago.

For me, this memory continues to bring with it a feeling of safety and calm, so I often conjure it up and try to put myself back there again.

Sherie xx

[Croix]

Dear Sherie~

It is not often that the happy memory comes with a valuable lesson. The picture you paint of that retreat is full, detailed and seems a real respite from a busy and stressful life.

Having a mental 'place' to go to when times are not that good is a valuable tool

Thank you

Croix.

[Guest_1055]

That is a beautiful, carefree and peaceful memory Sherie, Thankyou for sharing it.

Do you think you will come back to this thread and read the words you wrote again. Maybe when you are in great need of having this more pleasant and peaceful memory?

Shell 🙂