Dwelling in the past

 

My aunt is 94 and the only one left in our family who remembers World War 2.  The whole of her teenage years from 13-19 were spent living with the fear of invasion and bombing raids, with severe alterations to their way of life in terms of rationing, queuing and so on.  But she reminisces fondly about all the dances she went to, accompanied by soldiers and airmen stationed there, although each time there would be a few familiar faces missing as they had not returned from a mission.   She made me smile recently when she talked happily about long enjoyable hikes in later years, spending a week say, walking the challenging North Cornwall coast.  “Of course, I couldn’t do it now, but we were much younger then.”

“How old were you?”

“Oh, only in our 70s.”

Advancing age gives us a different perspective on life and she has been singularly unafraid of catching Covid-19.  That may be partly owing to her failing health but she says stoutly that having lived through the war and the ever-present threat of bombs, she’s not scared of a virus!

Reflecting how much she now lives in the past, and with nothing to look forward to, makes me wish she could be persuaded to take Honeysuckle.  It also made me wonder whether some of us, living through the pandemic, may also need Honeysuckle without realising it?  Many of us are recalling summers when we could go anywhere we liked for a holiday, could shop on a whim without queuing, and could meet whomever we liked, hug and kiss, and walk into any pub for a meal without booking.  If you’re finding it hard to adapt to current rules and ways of life then consider Walnut.  But if you find yourself spending time thinking about the past – distant or more recent – and how much better and easier things were, then take some Honeysuckle.

For some of us this year will have produced some very distressing and unhappy memories and Honeysuckle can help us move on from those too.  Without its help we can find ourselves chained to the past where our energy stays focused in what has happened, rather than drives the present where our real lives are.

 

(Library photo)