I feel so good when I sometimes remember fond memories, and it changes my mood when I hate life. Like when it's raining and the whole family's home and I would recall to them what I did when I was a kid during rainy days and classes were suspended. My sons, I, and my wife would be in our very small master's bedroom upstairs lying side by side in a blanket, or eating a meal by the dinner area window and watching the mad rush of canal water outside the street, or make them imagine that we're in a van on our way to the countryside or to Baguio or Tagaytay as I told them the stories.
I'd also recall the days when mom's office would have an excursion in Pangasinan or La Union or Tagaytay, or the summer vacations I and my friend Arturo spent in Bataan where we hiked along the highway from the beach to town and saw on a hill a singing Martines bird on a branch.
Or the grade school days when there was so much adventure in St. Patrick School, especially when we explored the river bank for "treasures" left there by the Japanese, or the film showing in the grassy school grounds at night and I and my friends would be seated together enjoying it. And how about the time when in a furious rain we'd enjoy the swollen street canal in our hilly village and the canal water would rush downhill like a wild river and we'd sit or lie down right there in the canal and the rush of water would slowly move us with it. There wasn't yet pollution in the canal because the water came from clean sources somewhere from the higher areas.
Sometimes, while raining and I'm seated on our bed cushion on our termite-infested floor, I'd look out the low window in front of me and watch trees and houses outside and remember the good old days when I was younger. And I'd smile and feel so young--I could almost smell the fresh clean air then and hear the laughter of my playmates, see their faces, hear the topics we often discussed about (like mysteries and old houses with secrets)...by the way, I wonder where they are now, I mean my playmates. Sometimes I see some of them and they've lost touch with most of the past. They're different now and too busy with getting more money and prestige.
Sometimes I'd watch teenage TV programs, like Tween Hearts, and see my own teenage life in the stories and remember faces...and situations. I just wish they'd make teenage TV series where the young people do detective works and solve mysteries and do other adventures, and not just be about love and crushes. I think this kind of TV program (detective, adventure, and mysteries) for the young would goad them to smart thinking, use their heads more for analytical activities than for merely imagining their love lives.
I also remember the times I and my girlfriend (my wife now) would date in museums and parks and attend lectures to further the adventurist spirit in our lives. We'd solve other people's problems and mysteries for them. We even had times joining a spiritual warfare team exorcising a haunted house or helping a rap victim to seek the help of the NBI.
I recall these memories of earlier times and they relieve inner conflicts when I hate life and ask what kind of life is this. I thank God for such memories. I tell them to my kids who listen with gusto to how I as a kid, and I and my wife as young people, enjoyed our time usefully.
Cherish fond memories and they'd come handy in times when you hate life.
