Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist)

© irene waters 2014

Henry Miller wrote in Big Sur and the Oranges of Heironymous Bosch ” Most everyone has known one moment in his life when he felt so good, so thoroughly attuned, that he has been on the point of exclaiming: “Ah, now is the time to die!” ”  His philosophy was based on having reached that ultimate moment when nothing can surpass it and there is no way to go but down. The reality of life will return. Bills will have to be paid, housework will have to be done.

Now as I get older I enjoy living too much to wish myself dead just because I feel good. No. Life is too short as it is and most days I can find some happening that made that particular day. It may be the laughter that came unexpectedly at an inane comment, reading a blog that left me feeling great or moved me, watching the antics of my dogs on our daily walks, getting a bit of my study under control but something, sometimes many things will make my day. One something made not only my day but the rest of my life.

I was angry and I wasn’t going to forgive my parents for moving the family to the city for my brother’s education. I didn’t want to leave the wide, winding river where we looked for platypus, played and swam nor did I want to leave all my favourite trees and shops where I knew all the shopkeepers. I took it out on my parents for the next ten years. I made them pay for their Victorian attitudes, for the move and pay for the allergies I suffered as a result of it.

Then one day as I walked down the street the realisation hit me like a bolt of lightning. My parents are human and didn’t set out to ruin my life on purpose. They did what they thought was best for us. The fact that it wasn’t best for me was irrelevant as they could only do what they thought was best. The only person ruining my life was me.

In response to Lisa’s Bite Size memoir prompt