I wrote a post the other day about happy childhoods. Which, unfortunately got me to thinking…and I think that WE ALL know…I don’t do well when I start thinking!
It’s wonderful to have warm fuzzy, apple pie and vanilla ice cream memories of our childhood. It gives our parents warm fuzzies to know that they PROVIDED us with a happy childhood. Well…that’s all fine and dandy.
But…
Our childhood is, technically…18 years long. I mean, that’s when we stop going to the pediatrician and start going to an grown up doctor, right?
So, let me ask you this…
What about our adulthood. That lasts a heck of a lot longer than our childhood. Shouldn’t it just keep getting better and better?
Growing up in a typical highly functioning, dysfunctional home…didn’t provide me with tools needed for grown up life. Stress. Bills. Bills. Stress.
What about all the warm fuzzy, apple pie and vanilla ice cream memories from our adulthood that we can look back on in the nursing home? Those memories are going to be negated by the high price of gas, adjustable mortgages, kids going into crystal meth induced comas…all of that kind of shit that adults have to deal with.
THOSE…are definitely NOT precursors to happy adulthood memories.
So…
How cynical and negative do I sound?
I’m not even an unhappy person. And, quite frankly…on the most part, I am having a happy adulthood. But…I’m also very busy trying to provide my children with a happy childhood…so that they can look back and say the same thing…
What about a happy adulthood.
So what do you do to give yourself happy adulthood memories?
What kind of hobbies do you have? What is making you happy…aside from your children. This is about you, people.
Yes…many of our fondest memories are of our children but…what about when the kids aren’t around?
Tell me…
What are you doing to insure that, when you are sitting and drooling in a nursing home, you are remembering a happy time?
Curious…
XOXO
Wow! Good question…..
I’ll remember moments with my husband giggling at our inside jokes…..Road trips with friends…..All night phone calls…..Cooking disasters…..Puppy kisses…..Playing with kittens…..other peoples children……mornings alone….
there’s more but I have to get the kiddos off to school! LOL
I don’t have children of my own, but I enjoy the niece and nephew that live 30 minutes away (every weekend). I also love my bichon frise dog.
Hubby and I both play World of Warcraft and have met MANY new friends there. We’ve actually met a lot of these people in real life and (scary thought) they’re actually normal. =) Quite a few are lawyers or judges even which REALLY scares me.
I also read…a LOT!! Oh, and I’m a TV Junkie.
Sorry, My link in the first comment is wrong. I forgot the forward slash at the end. =(
This is a good question and at this point in my life I am not having a happy adulthood with my children, unfortunately. So I would say that for right now I actually am enjoying my job, meeting great bloggy friends, going on dates with my hubby and the chilly winter and fall mornings spent snuggled under blankets watching cartoons with our kids. Even when they’re not home we still snuggle under the blankets on Saturday mornings and that’s when the real fun begins!
I try to travel. It doesn’t always have to be to someplace exotic, sometimes just a weekend trip to a town 2 hours away will do. Just getting away for “normal” life and doing something different makes me smile.
Travel, even if it ‘s just up to St Augustine…camping…making memories.
I do theatre. And as I mentioned in the happy childhood question, we take the kids LOTS more places than I ever got to go as a kid. So I’m kind of having my happy childhood and my happy adulthood at the same time. If that makes any kind of sense. It may mean that I’m rushing headlong toward senility.