OLD MEMORIES - NEW HOPES
Even to a depressant, a New Year causes one to think about the possibility of good, new changes occurring that can erase the old pains and memories that continue to haunt us and cause those times of depression that hang on like a bad dream. We may not be able to whole heartedly and with euphoric joy make those Resolutions and Lists that we have plans to start at once to get at and get into and see results immediately. We know all too well that we are slow to start, slow to hope, have little to no energy and have that fear of failure tapping us on the shoulder from the beginning.
Depressants seem locked in a time and space where the past never leaves and the future is too distant to believe in. The memories creep in often reminding us that we are unworthy of happiness, lieing to us telling us that we are to blame, have always been and will always be; there is no forgiveness. Time only marches – it doesn’t pass. Yesterday is always within touch, always an arms length away, only your old mean best friend, who won’t go away.
After the unbearable pain lasted a lifetime, they took me into the delivery room. “Oh, my God!” the Doctor gasped. I passed out. The next week was a nightmare. There was no baby. He had died. No one came. My mother called me on the phone. “It was for the best.” She decided. I screamed at her. What was she saying? I asked where my baby’s body was. I wanted to bury it. I kept asking and asking. Finally the head nurse came in and rapidly shouted “Your baby has been cut up and sent across the street. Now are you happy?” I thought I would go insane. I threw a potted plant at her.
When I got out of the hospital and went home, the nursery had been cleaned out as if I had never been expecting to bring a baby home. No one would speak to me about what happened. No one would tell me what happened to my baby. Not my husband, not my parents, not the doctor, no one. They all just kept saying it was for the best. I divorced my husband and to this day no one has mentioned my baby to me. He was dismissed as if he was never born.
But he was born. I carried him for nine months. I felt him kick. I felt him squirm. I made a nursery. I had a shower. I gave him a name. Robert Wayne; after my daddy & my husband. I made plans to be his mother. But they took all the memories and dismissed my son as if he was never meant to be and no one would talk to me about it. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that my doctor was my cousin and he was liable for something and back then you just swept things under the rug. I don’t know. I was all alone and my baby died. That’s all I know. I was only 18 and all alone. It was 1973.
I’m not being melodramatic, this really happened. These are real, terrible memories I have of a time when my depression started. I was 18. I don’t know how I got through the next years except I did finally go to Nursing School and get my LPN and met a musician and had my two daughters. Having my daughters helped fill in the void I had felt from loosing my son. No one has ever asked me about my son throughout all these years, not any of my friends, family, no one. The only time he’s been mentioned is when I have brought him up and then people seem to feel uncomfortable. I have never understood it. My girls never made up for the loss, but they gave me something else to focus on. They made me happy to be a mother.
There are things in our lives that happen that strips our hearts of its life and physical nature of personhood. There are those things that dry up our tears, scream in our minds and squeeze the very breath out of our lungs. Things that somehow we have no control over and no matter how hard we try we can’t reverse or undo or make right or reshape into something better. Sometimes there are things that just seem to be out there to destroy us even though we don’t deserve it.
And that’s the clincher. We don’t deserve it. But somehow we feel like we do deserve it. That’s what depression does for us. It makes us feel like we do deserve it. But we don’t. Because most of the time we have done nothing wrong. Our depression just lies to us and tells us that we are unworthy and tells us we get what we are due because we are less deserving than the next guy. But that isn’t true. We aren’t deserving of the judgment.
What we have to do is make new memories. Live new lives. Keep on living. Hope new hopes. Speak new possibilities into existence. Shout out loud that which you want to be! Decide what YOU want and speak it out loud many times, over and over until it flows so smoothly that you start believing it yourself without trying. Make it a reality in your mind. Speak it into existence. Speak it and you will believe it. What you believe will come to you. What you speak will draw itself unto you. What you expect will come to you. It is a spiritual quality of physical matter. I have seen it happen many, many times.
Oh, you can’t just say “I will have a Mercedes” and whoosh! A Mercedes will appear. But you can say “I will become a gentle person”. “I will be more understanding.” “I will learn to convey my feelings in a more open manner that is not offensive to others.” “My children will become calmer. I will help them become calm.” etc. Or who knows? Maybe you can get a new MercedesJ Positive speaking is a proven science that people have been practicing for decades and it is just as effective today as it was back when it was first announced as a technique for changing ones circumstance. Speaking positively certainly can’t hurt. It is certainly better than speaking negatively, isn’t it? Who knows? It just might work! Right?
So my challenge to you is to make new memories. Hope new Hopes. Put positive thoughts in your mind; replace those negative thoughts. Practice it daily or at least every time you think about it. Write positive thoughts you want to concentrate on onto 3 by 5 cards and place them around your home and in your car. Read them and speak them as you see them. Surround yourself with these positive thoughts everyday. I promise you things will start to change and you will see things in a different manner. Keep the thoughts within reason. Don’t profess the impossible. Make it reasonable. Make it attainable. But dream big. Hope big. Make new Hopes. Hope new Hopes. Replace the old memories with new ones. You may never forget. But you can have some good ones that follow to replace them, in a way.
This is a new year. Make new memories – Hope new Hopes. God bless. Be happyJ
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