Memories - we have made it to Day 31!

Well, here we are then - 31 days later, having wandered down Memory Lane. It has been astonishingly difficult to keep posting on one subject, I have to say, but once I get going, I tend to let the words run away with me, don't I.....

Memories come in all shapes and sizes, and all shades too. There are the sunny colours, interspersed with the dark ones, and that is what forms the picture of our lives. The blending of the shades. Gloomy pictures can be altered dramatically by touches of light - just look at some of the great masterpieces. I suppose it is all in the way you view things. I tend to focus on the little light.

Looking back, from the vantage point of being in the 3rd Age, I have been very lucky blessed. Life has taken some strange and unpredictable turns along the way, but the people I have met, loved, and with whom I have lived my life, have all added so many facets to the woman I am here and now. The family I was born into, and the one I shared in the creation of, have defined the core of who I am. This is what created the me whose words you are listening to right now. The rest is optional padding. We will ignore the other definition of the padding issue.

What fascinates me is the consequence of making particular choices. Of how, looking back, I can see just how one particular choice led to a multitude of unique experiences, and how that has been repeated over and over again in my life. The "what if" question - it is only natural to ponder that too.

Distance, of course, lends enchantment. Things have not always been rosy and shiny and bright. But, and this is a HUGE but, I am a survivor. I had a happy childhood. A wonderful family. A fantastic time at University. I married the man I loved. I had three amazing children. I moved from one side of the world to another. I have had friends alongside me. I am a grandmother.

Then, looking at those darker colours, there was my Dad's illness and death. Moving my parents here. My son's health issues. Geoff's death. More health issues - me, Mum, Diana, Marge, Ann...... Financial battles. Legal nightmares. Saying goodbye over and over again. You name, it, it is all there on the palette. Gloom.

But remember, without those darker colours, the bright ones would be dimmed.

Contrast.

I am painting my own masterpiece, but there will be more light in mine. Lots of it. I am going to make sure that I keep adding layers of light over the darker shades, so that they start to sparkle. Scraping away some of the shadows overlaying bright happy colours, so they can shine through. I want this masterpiece to be one which has the eyes darting all over the place, because you see, if there is one thing I am not, it is boring. Mercurial is a word often used to describe me. I suspect it is fairly accurate.

Do you remember those art books we used to buy? The ones with black crayon over a sheet of bright colour? You took a wooden stick and drew a picture on the black which removed it, and all those  rainbow colours popped through?? I used to want to just scrape great wads of it off to get to the colour. Well, that is what I want to do. Scrape away the darkness and reveal what is underneath. Deep inside me.

You see, in another childhood painting idea, I believe that, hidden from me, is a picture - like the white crayon revealed when you paint watercolour over it. And I will find out what it is one day. All those experiences, all those memories, all the things which have amalgamated to form ME are part of a picture which will only be revealed one day when I keel over and expire. Or, because my faith is central to my life, when I stand before God one day, THAT is when I will see the finished masterpiece. And how it all fits together. And the whole. The purpose.

It may even be like a patchwork collage of photos of every single memory and experience in my life. I am too close to it right now to see what it will be, but one day....... Hmmm. I like that idea. It is the creativity inside me. These arty ideas just keep barrelling through my mind.

But, enough, for now.

The picture is not finished. Yet. There are more memories to make. More gratitude journals to fill. More memory jars to top up. More cakes to bake. More places to visit. More seeds to plant. More love to experience. More fun to be had. More books to read, more quilts to make. More friends to meet.

More.................