This post will not be quite what you might surmise from the title. It’s actually a twofer. I had already planned for this post yesterday for the idea of “young-at-heart”, but then I had a conversation last night that left me “yearning”.
(I considered using the word “yappy” for today because that’s how I feel when I’m in need of attention. I was going to put a video of a little dog yapping to show what I feel like when I’m in “extreme needy mode” jumping around everyone’s feet when they walk! [Just ask Plato!] But the video I found of the barking dog distressed poor Fimnora so much when she heard it over the phone, I decided to spare her the heartbreak. She thought it sounded like a wounded puppy! But see how sneaky I was about getting that extra word in here!.😀 )
Anyway…
I have these occasional moments — well, Drollery and I both do — when I feel YOUNG-AT-HEART still. I get to thinking about all the times we spent when we were dating parked at the A & W Root Beer Stand drinking root beer floats and talking. Talking about school or life in general or, more specifically, how our life would be together when we got hitched. I get sentimental for those times every now and then. Most generally if it’s been awhile since he and I have had some alone time (our 37-year-old son lives with us — ‘nuf said).
When that happens, we take off in the evening for the Sonic Drive-In near our house. We’ll order an ice cream cone (they’re only $1 there — great when you’re on a tight budget) and we’ll just sit and listen to the music they play, slurp our ice cream, and talk. There’s a certain feeling that comes with that of being transported back 45 years. (Once on the way home from my folks’ house we tried to recapture it by driving through downtown Ogden with all our windows open, Garth Brooks’ “Friends In Low Places” blaring as if we were dragging the ‘vard along with the other kids cruisin’ up and down the street, but have you seen how scary some kids look these days? Not quite in our comfort zone! No offense meant!)
It seems kind of a silly little thing, I guess, but those times have become some of my favorite moments in our life now. You gotta grab ’em when you get the chance. I feel it’s important to stay YOUNG-AT-HEART, not just personally, but in our relationship as well. And I sometimes feel we don’t work at it hard enough. (Now if we were talking about bodies at 65 it would be a whole different matter! rolls eyes…)
And if you were thinking that YEARNING also has to do with the wanting to feel young again thing, sorry… After a phone conversation with my sister last night, I was YEARNING for a miracle.
My brother-in-law has been fighting cancer for three years now. We’re losing him a little bit more every day. Right now he sleeps from around 9 or 10 p.m. till around 3 o’clock in the afternoon. That constant sleeping is so often the precursor to the end of life that my sister is talking about it more and more.
Last night she said when she goes to bed after he’s finally asleep she lays there with her head next to his on his pillow and it’s a time when she can pretend for just a little while that everything is normal. And then she’ll cry. The idea of how hard she tries to hold on to that little bit of THEIR life made my take on the Y post seem rather insignificant.
By the time I got off the phone I was in tears and doing something I haven’t done for a good while since this started. I was praying and YEARNING for a miracle for them. I have fallen into that inactive prayer of “please let this suffering pass and take him home in his sleep”. But this morning I’m still YEARNING and praying for that miracle.
It struck me as I wrote this that one word reflected the ending of singularity and the beginning of a life together while the other told of togetherness turning into singularity once again. It reminds me that life is not lived in a straight line, as the poet Rod McKuen once said (thank you, Anna from Anna Cottage for that wonderful quote), but rather in a circle. It’s the Circle of Life.
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What we call the beginning is often an ending.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
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T.S. Eliot
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The Blogging A to Z Challenge — Y
Photo Credits:
A & W Root Beer — www.pinterest.com
Sonic Drive-In by us — www.waymarking.com
Circle of Leaves — imgur.com
I’m so sorry. That’s so hard to watch for families.
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This makes me think of the last scene of the program Six Feet Under. She goes to take a picture of her family and her brother says “you can’t take a picture..it’s already gone. ” For some reason, that scene finished me.
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You know, I never did watch it. But I certainly get what you mean. It seems that way. After all the chemo, radiation, and experimental drug, Greg is just not Greg anymore.
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I will keep trying.
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😀 😀 😀
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I like T.S Eliot’s quote “the end is where we start from” that is so true. There is never an ending, we go onto what we have longed for.
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Or at least to whatever is thrown on our plate! What choice do we have, eh?
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I like to think that what we have longed for comes true
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You haven’t converted me to a romantic yet, girlfriend!!! 😀
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I was going to say that this reminded me of a movie we saw many years ago, but couldn’t remember the name, so couldn’t get a youtube of the song.
Seeing that Sonic made me think of when it first came to Dallas. We loved it!
We’re young at heart because we both play My Singing Monsters LOL
Seriously, it keeps us young!
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So the family that sings together also plays Singing Monsters together? 😀
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Exactly! It’s a most gratifying thing to be gushing over a new monster, and know that the person sharing your living space is right there with you!
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May you always be young at heart and pamper your inner child.
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You mean I’ve got to unlock the closet door and let her out? Oh my!!! 🙂
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She shouldn’t be hidden in the closet 🙂
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It’s the only way I can keep her out of the ice cream! 😮 LOL
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My heart breaks for your sister! I still lay my head on Mike’s pillow and it sometimes feels as if he is right there. I wake up often and reach for him during the night and he isn’t there. It’s always a shock to my sleepy state when I realize he’s gone.
Very nice post. Thanks!
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Thank you, Deb. How long has it been now, if you don’t mind my asking?
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Two years on 4/24/14
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That’s such a long two years, isn’t it…
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Will always be young at heart….and mind and in spirit. I’ve yet to read any ‘Dummy’ books on how any one age is suppose to act or be…..hubby is always saying to me “let’s never stop laughing and having fun with each other”…………………on a serious note…my continued thoughts and prayers go out to both Greg and your sister 🙏
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I appreciate it a lot that you keep them in your prayers. Thank you.
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🙏🙏🙏
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I’m young at heart right up to when I find a mirror.
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Hey! None of that, Opher! I think you look quite sophisticated like one of those guys who would say: I don’t always drink Dom Perignon, but when I do I ___________. 😀
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