Where Bloggers Live: If I Could Travel in Time
Welcome to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live. It’s kind of like HGTV’s “Celebrities at Home,” but…Bloggers! Who doesn’t like to peek behind the scenes and see inside people’s homes and lives? Every month a group of six bloggers share their work-spaces, homes, towns, thoughts, with posts based on specific prompts. It’s been so interesting over the years to see the different ways each of us interpret the topics.
This month’s prompt was “If I could travel in time.” This topic took a lot of thought. Would I like to travel to the future to see what’s ahead? Would I like to go back to a time already passed, like the 1950s or the Renaissance?? I actually gravitated to two totally different answers to this – and one quickly became very complex and I just do not have time. Maybe someday. That time was “the beginning of religion.” How interesting to hear those initial discussions…how the first person/people wondered about where we came from, how did we get here. But I can’t take one more step in that direction today. But that would be fascinating.
The other time, more personal and close to home, is the 1970s, when both my parents were still alive. When I was old enough to understand that my parents had lives beyond just…being my parents…but young enough that I still had the opportunity to speak with them on more of an adult level and try to understand them better.
I regret not taking the opportunity when I had it. In my defense, I was a kid, a teen…and was pretty focused on my life, not really giving much thought to theirs. It’s only from an adult perspective that I realize how little I knew my parents. What kinds of people they were. How they turned out the way they did.
Only years after his death (my father died when I was 22) did I become interested in things like gardening and photography – two things that had been passions of his. How nice it would have been if we’d been able to connect through those interests and not just as a father/daughter. I know he loved me but we were not especially close.
And now, I would love to his stories about his military time during the war. He turned 20 in 1939, the year World War II started…and he was in the Navy for 20 years, so he saw all of that war and probably some of the Korean War. I suspect we would not necassarily see eye-to-eye on all the elements, but I still would like to hear his views and experiences.
My mother is a different story. I’m still going through all my father’s old slides from the early years of their marriage and their time spent living overseas in Italy and Japan. And the woman I see in these photos – is not my mother. She is not the woman I knew. She looks social and vivacious and happy. *My* mother was depressed and fearful and reclusive. She could “turn it on” for other people, and they saw her as outgoing and gracious and hospitable. But those moments were fleeting…and when my friends left, or we returned home from visiting her family on the west coast…she got back in her nightgown and in her bed and wouldn’t drive after dark and would make three right turns to avoid a left turn against traffic and turned down every invitation from people who wanted to be her friends.
On the inside, I’m her…but I’m fighting it. I don’t think she felt like she had that option.
So I would love to really talk with her and ask her to help me understand what changed her from Person A to Person B. Because from the outside, I don’t see it. At the time I was just annoyed by it. Now I feel sympathetic…and a little ashamed I didn’t try harder to have a nicer relationship with her.
I would like to travel back to a time when I could care more about my parents as people. And not just the people who gave me food and a place to live and annoyed me with stupid rules and flashes of crazy (according to 16-year-old me).
I apologize for the absence of pictures. The pictures are…somewhere…on a drive…that is somewhere…maybe in this house, maybe in a dumpster, maybe en route in a box from New York…who knows. Every day is a mystery. Every day is an adventure.
Be sure to visit my friends to see when in time they would like to travel!
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Iris at Iris’ Original Ramblings
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Leslie at Once Upon a Time Happily Ever After
Sally at Within a World of My Own
Iris
Oh I hear you Bettye. I’d give anything to sit and just listen to my grandmothers and my mother & father. But sadly when they were alive I wasn’t interested. I’m still collecting bits of information, but it would be so great if I had them around to ask questions about their childhoods, etc.
Iris
bettyewp
I did sit with my aunt last time I was in California and asked her a ton of questions about my mother – of course her answers could only represent her perspective, but still…there were some things I’d never known. Do you think I REMEMBER any of that now?? HA HA HA HA HA no.
em
It’s that thing about being a kid…you’re so focused on your own place in the world that you don’t realize that even the adults are still trying to navigate the same journey. In contemplating the topic, Mr and I noted that you would have to be able to go back with today’s wisdom for it to be worthwhile….and yet the wisdom comes from so many of those mistakes you made.
My post on your topic was my typical trite drivel, but I did truly did think about how–for people who have lost members of their immediate family–this topic carries SO much more gravity. I have friends who have lost children or parents and live each day wishing for that chance to share a moment of time with the people they lost. I actually almost bailed on this one because I worried about being insensitive.
But thank you for your lovely, honest take. And while I always enjoy your pictures, you painted a wistful and poignant one with your words.
bettyewp
Here I am, pulling you out of the trash once again! At least now I’m remembering to check there everytime I check comments. There were other people in there the other day, so it’s not just you.
I almost bailed, too! Cuz I really started out with the religion concept…but a) that became a HUGE topic really fast and b) VERY HARD to talk about religion in any context without someone feeling…SOMETHING. And I just thought, I am not up to going there right now.
Yeah, I think in any “travel back in time” scenario, if you couldn’t go back “knowing what you know now” then it wouldn’t even be worth it…and you’d probably just do the same regrettable things you did the first time. So to me, awareness is a given in any time travel situation.
At THIS moment, seing the mountain of boxes that just arrived on Katie’s doorstep from my friend in NY who was fostering all the things that wouldn’t fit in the rental care when we drove down here
a lifetime3 weeks ago, I’m wishing I could go back to the beginning of this year and GET RID OF MORE SHIT SOONER. Ugh. I was a poor declutterer. And I did a LOT. Just not enough.Thanks for your kind words on my lack of visuals…it felt so incomplete, so WRONG, to publish a post with no pictures!
Lisa
This post resonated with me. My mom died when I was 15 and my dad died when I was 25. I would love to know them as adults. I think we would have very different opinions about many things but there is so much I’d like to know.
bettyewp
Oh, I’m sorry for your early losses, Lisa. Fifteen, that must have really been hard for you.
{{hugs}}
Jodie Filogomo
It goes to show that we are more mature now to want to know our parents as people. And to see how it influenced us.
Every person has such an interesting story if we take the time to listen!
Xoox
Jodie
bettyewp
Yes. More “mature.” 🙂
Sally in St Paul
I think these feelings of wanting to reconnect with family and get to know them on a deeper level will resonate with a lot of people, Bettye. I am sorry that you never got to know your dad or your mother as she was before as an adult where you could appreciate them in that way. Your idea of going back to hear how people first started thinking about the big questions that lead to the development of religious beliefs is fascinating! I would like to experience that too.
bettyewp
I keep trying to drop little tidbits to Katie about my life before her…in the hopes that she won’t have to look back someday and wish she’d known more or asked more. But I don’t honestly think it’s making any difference 🙁
Daenel T.
I so feel all of this. I wonder what turned my mom into the person of our teen years because she was very different from the person we knew in our younger years. Like you, I’ve talked to my kids about who I was before them. I share my hopes and dreams. I talk about who I wanted to be and how I became who I am. Even if they don’t know the importance, they will someday.
Leslie Susan Clingan
Who needs pictures with expressive words like these. I can see your mom, the mom you knew and the mom in the slides of the images your father snapped. I can see your dad in his garden or his Naval uniform. Wish you had had more time with him to hear the stories for yourself and Katie. I find myself wishing I could ask my parents to tell so-and-so story just one more time because I can’t remember all the details.
My mom was a bit like the mom you grew up with. Not to the same extent but certainly able to shine and radiate happiness and confidence and friendliness that she really didn’t possess or wasn’t really feeling. PC would say the same of me. I guess we don’t fall far from the tree, do we? I imagine both of your parents would be proud if not a little flabbergasted at your upcoming adventure and the way you have put your plans into place. I know I am proud of you and a bit flabbergasted.
I read what you wrote in response above to Sally’s comment. Keep dropping little hints for Katie, or heck, flat out tell her how things were and how they appeared and how puzzled you are by the disconnect. I know in my family it all comes down to mental health in many ways, and while my brother and sister would deny any mental health issues in themselves or even our parents, I see signs everywhere in all of us. And I think my daughters need to be aware. Love you.