Thread: Feeling old and tired......

I have had one of those weeks, other than the Tea Party (that day was ok till the evening we got home and our young cat was hit and killed).

I needed to vent, with all the stress that has built up since the September downturn and thought maybe some others would feel the need to just do the same.

I had a moment, call it a flashback if you will. Ever have one of those, when you hear a song, or a smell and it takes you back, almost like traveling in a time machine to a certain moment in your life? It is a strange feeling, and more amazing when you realize all of those memories, feelings, smells, sounds and thoughts are all stored, just like little movies, in your brain.

That moment happened when I had Fox news running in the background, and the ad they have been playing for Cristy Lane music was on. My father listened to country music, and I remember her music being on in those years, gospel even and it was ok.

So I am sitting here, but almost as if in my families living room, I am about 9 and Little House on the Prairie is on, parents sitting there.

Then I thought of the simplicity of childhood back then compared to now. Christmas ornaments made out of all manner of things, including painted noodles, in a star shape on construction paper, with glitter all over, Readers Digests with pages turned down and spray painted to look like "Christmas Trees", school Christmas programs, homemade cupcakes AT SCHOOL. Saturday morning cartoons, and WITHOUT CABLE!

Running around in the woods ALL day long during the summer, barefoot, eating berries, chewing on wood sorrel stems and licorice ferns stems to sustain ourselves (so we did not have to stop) and drinking creek water when thirsty (we were such wild kids). Coming home when it was dark to eat dinner, and not once did our parents worry where we were and if we were ok, they only worried about what WE might be up to.

My parents both worked full time, and there were six of us (so there was always someone over me, I was the last) but we also had older neighbor ladies watching our for us and we had to MIND them if they came over to tell us something.

We could walk up to the store (we live in a small town) for some candy, or pop (we rarely EVER had this, only when we had our own money), and speaking of how we had the $$ to go get the stuff, we picked berries for farmers, half days without our parents there and were paid by the pound, and had to mind the farmers and their wives who were in charge while we were there, till our mother picked us up on her lunch break.

Walking to other friends houses, who may have lived quite far from us, but we were always ok.

I cannot imagine, our parents reminiscing seemed so silly to us, and now I understand, they just wanted simpler times, or at least to talk about it. Now our world seems to be spinning out of control, and I often wonder, even in this last year how my own grandparents would feel if they saw all we have seen? My mother is the only one alive, and her words are "it's all going to hell in a handbasket"!

Tell me your stories. It might help us all right now. Since September, it has all been so stressful and a "brain vacation" might be nice about now.

I'm there with you man as a senior citizen I've seen the changes first hand
and sometimes to escape I go back to my youth in mind when the pace was slow and it feels good.

Originally Posted by AE

Then I thought of the simplicity of childhood back then compared to now. Christmas ornaments made out of all manner of things, including painted noodles, in a star shape on construction paper, with glitter all over, Readers Digests with pages turned down and spray painted to look like "Christmas Trees", school Christmas programs, homemade cupcakes AT SCHOOL. Saturday morning cartoons, and WITHOUT CABLE!

I can relate to your post but this part I can say is something my kids do experience. We have a lot of hand made things for our tree and my son took cookies to school for his birthday just yesterday. They also had a Christmas program, yes in a public school but they called it a holiday program.

I do hate that my kids will not get to experience childhood the way I did. It was much like you descibed. We were outside all day playing in the woods, in the creek behind our house or basketball in the neighborhood. Now we have to do planned playdates and we just fenced our yard so I can let the kids play outside without having to be out there every second with them.

I remember drinking the glass bottles of pepsi all the time. The kind that contained real cane sugar. Oh I miss that!

Now we have to worry about HFCS, food dyes, antibiotics in meat, salmonella in our imported vegetables.

And there are so many much bigger issues to worry about that I had no idea about just a few years ago. (Illegal immigration, Federal Reserve, DHS, bailouts, etc).

But I try to forget about it all sometimes and just enjoy life. We are going on vacation in a few days and I will not watch any news and will try not to log on the computer.

AE, I am so sorry to hear about your precious young cat. And I empathize with you about feeling old and tired. Between tea parties and just waiting for the other shoe to drop (and it always does) with Obama and his comrades in Washgton, it can become exhausting.

I think it is important for all of us that have been fighting for our country to take good care of ourselves, so that we can maintain our momentum, and one way of doing that is periodically taking a “mental vacationâ€

I used to love to walk the beach in Florida with the dog on the leash (who hated to get his paws wet). It was always tranquil until one tourist season some woman from Germany laying on the beach starts screaming at me. I didn't need that kind of aggravation.
With the beach forbidden territory and now with no beach nearby here in NC, I occasionally go tromping through the botanical gardens or even commercial nurseries to see what's in bloom and where it would fit in my small suburban yard.
And when weather is lousy, I stick my nose in a nice English murder mystery.

I often go back. The idyllic childhood I had really was as perfect a life as I could devise for any book about the good ole days and it didn't stop with my childhood either, it continued into high school and then college and my first 3 professions and then even up until a couple of years into the work I do now, and then suddenly it all changed. It was almost like it changed over-night and suddenly I was seeing government actions that were outrageous and reading news that astounded me and came across blogs that revealed the hearts and souls of people I didn't even know existed in our country.

Then one day i decided to find out "what in the world is going on". It took some heavy research but oh my what I found made my blood run cold, a fear and dread from the realization of what was happening that made me throw up.

I could no longer see the future I'd always been able to see for our country. My heart broke for our children of today and tomorrow who could never in any version have anything like what we had because it was clear our kids no longer mattered at all when we as kids had mattered more than anything to everyone.

I thought about my great-great-great grandfather who fought in the revolutionary war and my great-grandfather who fought in the civil war for the union. I thought about my Dad and 4 uncles who fought in WWII, and then 2 of those same uncles who went on to fight in Korea. I think about Uncle Wayne who was at Iwo Jima, and was never given a furlough, not once, during 4 years of WWII. I thought about my cousin who was a Green Beret in Nam, who left with a troop of 175 Green Berets and was 1 of only 5 who made it back home alive or without serious injury.

Then, I think about the old out-house, the ice-box, the chicken house, the little chicken coop for the baby chicks, the old well that didn't work, mom pouring water out of the milk cans grandpa brought us water in while Dad was away building boilers for the electric industry.

I think about the gravel road, our picnics in the woods, our buck-eye tree behind the house and the red bud tree in front of the house, the fat squirrels burying the nuts for the winter that had fallen from the big oak trees that shaded the house, and blue birds sitting on the fence wire, our fruit orchard with fresh peaches, apples and cherries, and 3 ponds, and cute old barn and 2 cows named Midge and Princess in it, and berries on the fence rows, and the mud pies we made in penny plates in the driveway after a good rain, and after we licked the salt blocks put out for the cows, climbed the maple tree that turned red in the fall, got swished in the face with a scratchy cow's tail trying to pet the cows on the back, said "good morning baby chicks" to the baby chicks in their heated coop, greeted big ole rooster squawking away as we gently gathered the eggs from under his hens roosting in their fresh straw-lined nests in the chicken house for mom to make us breakfast and sell the rest ... and I think how could any childhood be better than that? And why can't our kids today have at least part of that or at least know someone who does?

And the answer to that is the same for all that we've lost. We didn't know how much we would miss it when it was no longer there at our pleasure.

We've lost so much, so much that we can never get back .. or have we? Have we lost the ability to have berries on the fence rows or blue-birds on the wire or orchard trees?! Or fresh farm eggs from chickens having a wonderful life in a big ole beautiful chicken house with screened windows and a big yard to run and scratch and peck around in? Have we lost the ability to have cute barns and big fields of grass with plenty of fresh pond water and salt blocks and people milking them who know their names? Have we really lost that? No! We can still have that if we want it. The organic raw milk movement is there preserving and reviving those memories and working to bring that back to reality for us just like we are working to stop illegal immigration and bring the reality of good jobs like my Dad had back for us.

Americans everywhere, our generation primarily, are fighting like the wind in a hail storm, to save our country in every way possible that we can think of. Some are fighting to preserve our small farms, others fighting to get back the right to sell healthy raw milk, others are fighting to preserve our wildlife areas and protect our remaining environment and wilderness from development and pollution, others are fighting to end Free Trade Treason and bring our jobs and glorious industries back home, others to end growth hormones in our food, and for real grains instead of genetically-modified freaky food; others are fighting to stop the travesty of illegal immigration, others are fighting for the Fairtax and the liberty and power it gives our people against our government, and having Tea Parties to stop this government spending and unnecessary borrowing, others are fighting to save our gun rights, and others are fighting to legalize drugs and hemp farming and preserve individual rights, and so much more.

Everywhere Americans are fighting for the "good ole days" and the freedom and joy of our past in one way or another. This generation will be the first generation in American History to fight for regression instead of progression, the first to work to restore part of our history and weave it permanently into our present so it is preserved for the next generation of Americans, not in an old photo in a stuffy ole museum somewhere or in some sad chapter in a history book about how America died, but in our permanent landscape so that these memories can be the personal memories of all Americans because the opportunity to experience them was preserved by the first generation of Americans who realized the wisdom of their ancestors before it was too late.

Tell your parents and grandparents how much you love them and not to worry, that our country is not going to hell in a hand-basket, after all, because the true joys, happiness, memories and love they gave us are far too valuable to lose and that they raised a generation far too smart to let any of it go without a fight.

Whether we realized it during the course or not, it's time to realize it now, and that is that we are the generation that was born, raised and educated to preserve the United States, and all that is and will always be American.

My heart swells with pride and my eyes tear with the enormous love and admiration I feel for my fellow Americans like the brave, courageous and hard-working people of ALIPAC who not only love each other and our country, but who love our past and memories that made us who we are.

We Are:

The Americans.

We not only control what happens here,

We decide what happens here.

Do not feel tired,

Do not feel old,

Because you are neither.

You are the Americans whose destiny it is to preserve and defend the United States.

USA! USA! USA!

I go for a hike or bike ride in the countryside.

So true all. There are ways to take some of it back, and also find some peace.

The news can really drag you down, and many times I have just signed off of news for a week.

I did not have beaches to roam on, I grew up near Mt. Hood (northern Oregon in the Cascades for those who don't live around here). I think it was pretty ideal, but even my father felt it was not as good as it could have been.

I can see from the kinds of memories, we all come from different generations. I am 41, three kids and one 4 year old grandson. My oldest daughter (who is 26...yep, do the math, I was REALLY young) is getting ready to be married this summer. Then we have a 15 year old son and 11 year old daughter, and cats.

My husband has different kinds of memories, he is 58, Vietnam Veteran, born and raised in Chicago (I have always felt sorry for him, living out his childhood in a concrete jungle, lol).

My father was a Korean Vet, then became a professional baker, my mother a cake decorator, and also worked other jobs. Family vacations were 8 of us crammed into the suburban, driving for what seemed like hours till we reached a place we could camp, and he could fish. We had tent trailer, and it was crowded, but not terrible.

My father would have been happier living out in the eastern part of Oregon, the high desert (think John Wayne movie locations), ranching, but it was not his lot in life. Though, he did take us out there as much as possible, and to also see where the wagon trains came through on the Oregon Trail, you can still see the ruts in the soil out there.

Now, I drag everyone out as much as possible, to eastern Oregon, our main goal is we like to rock hunt over there, but just to see it and be out in the open, it is an amazing place (of course I am biased and think all of Oregon is amazing...). I could live there, no one for miles and the average town is about 400 people.

My place for solitude is in the mountains, on some ancient logging road, way up high on the mountain. Deep in the woods and all you hear is the birds and the roaring of the river way down below. We did that just Thursday evening, we all needed to get out, we had just buried the cat the prior evening, no one was feeling so happy and to make matters worse, the neighbors had all flocked outdoors to cook stuff, drink and play their loud "oom-boom-ah" musica...we were all feeling edgy and irritable, and it was not getting any better.

Picked up my husband at work, kids in tow, food in the back and drove out. We found one of those logging roads, went up, and then came down, so steep, our brakes were smoking .......

Picnicked along the Clackamas River till dark and drove home. Wasn't much, but it helped to get away.

We can only hope that with people across this nation fighting to restore things for future generations, that we can all be successful. I pray for it every day.

This is a beautiful thread. Thank you, AE for starting it and for describing so well how you felt and also to everyone who is adding to it. It just touched my heart so much to read all of what everyone has said.

I hope more people will add to it so that when I return, hopefully tonight, I can read it some more.

Y'all are truly good people. Thank you so much.

Legal, childhood memories are some of the best when things seem their worst. It is going back to a simpler time, when life seemed so simple and the most you had to worry about was what you might do the next day and simply "minding" yourself.

I always hope it is that way ,or has been, for my kids (they are getting older now).