Tag Archives: happy

Billy Joel, thanks, dude

Posted on by

1

I know that there have been dozens (or more) of articles and blogs about how music can evoke memories.  You know, the song that takes you back to the year you got your driver’s license, or back to your senior prom, or the song that was playing when you broke up with a serious girl or boyfriend?  For years I couldn’t listen to Bryan Adam’s Everything I Do (I Do For You) without getting sad.  I am not sure why it had such a powerful effect on me — I assume it had to do with the rough patches my ex-boyfriend and I were going through at the time Robin Hood was released.  Now I can listen to it with no problem.

Myrtle Beach Amusement Park
http://youthguy07.blogspot.com/2012/08/remembering-myrtle-beach-pavilion.html

Joan Jett singing Crimson and Clover takes me to the amusement park at the Pavilion at Myrtle Beach and a ride there, where the song was blasting and I felt as good as I have felt.

Then sometimes a song captures the feelings that you are having right now, rather than bringing back emotions.

That’s what happened to me today.

The best way to describe how I’ve been feeling lately is like time is passing and I’m missing something.  I think there are several things driving this feeling:

  • I’m having a mid-life plight.  Not a crisis — a plight.  Let’s get that straight.  But I am pondering how I have spent the last 20+ years and if I want to spend the next 20 doing the same thing.
  • My sister and I closed our dad’s estate last week.  I wasn’t expecting it to make me as sad as it did.  And it also made me think about what a person leaves behind when they pass.  The material things are not important — it’s the stories and the memories by which my sister and I feel most blessed.

So, today, when my iPhone music shuffled to Piano Man by Billy Joel, two things happened.  First, a Billy Joel song took me right back to my adolescent and teenage years.  He was one of my favorite singers when I was growing up.  Second, the lyrics of the song hit me in the gut:

It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday
The regular crowd shuffles in
There’s an old man sitting next to me
Making love to his tonic and gin

He says, “Son can you play me a memory
I’m not really sure how it goes
But it’s sad and it’s sweet
And I knew it complete
When I wore a younger man’s clothes”

Billy Joel http://www.billyjoel.com

Oh, Billy, you say the best.   Time is passing, and sometimes the memory is just out of reach.  But I can take comfort in the fact that the memory is sad and sweet and it was mine.  And I’ll have sweet, sad (and happy) memories from this stage of my life, too.

Now, I just have to find the music that will bring me back to now.

Hey, Matt — let’s buy those tickets to shoot zombies with the paintball guns.  And let’s play some rockin’ music while we do it.

Smile! You’ll live longer (or so happy people say…)

Posted on by

0

I don’t actually have much to say.  I just wanted to share some short videos (1 min or less) that I watch whenever I need a pick-me-up, whenever I need to smile.  And who doesn’t need those little attitude boosters every now and then?

Tucker

I love this sooo much.  The description says that Tucker wasn’t trained to do this (which may or may not be true) but that he just does this everyday on his own.  I love to think that this dog just feels the need to express his artistic side.  If you really want to smile, read some of the viewer comments.

Keep Swimming

When I get frustrated, I tell myself “Keep Swimming.”  Dorie may have sung this, but my friend, Wendy, sent me this clip (*waves* Hi, Wendy), so I also think about her whenever I watch this.  And she is my example of pure energy–she is a dynamo.  That image also makes me smile (and giggle).  It may be dog paddling some days, but I’m swimming, damn it.

Cali Dancing

This is a video of my niece, Cali, dancing.  She had just gotten a new toy bear that sings “The Pina Colada Song”.  She is so happy and so free in dancing and expressing her joy.  It is just all about living in that moment for her.  My heart is gladdened when I see this.  And why shouldn’t it be?  It’s a bear and “The Pina Colada Song”!!  If it were a parrot, say, and “The Pina Colada Song”, eh, I probably wouldn’t dance.  That’s not that worthy of bootie-shaking.  But a bear and pina coladas — worth getting on the dance floor every time!

Feel free to add my videos to your arsenal of favorites.  Or let me know what your favorites are for putting on a smile.

Cat vs dog

Posted on by

0

I posted this picture of my cat earlier this week, happy as can be relaxing in the garbage.

Thelma Lou in the Trash

Then I found this picture of a dog, happy in his relaxed position.

How Happy Am I?

Source:  http://www.aplacetolovedogs.com/2012/03/how-happy-am-i/1486629767/

 Cats are weird.  But they kill rodents, so I love them.  Dogs are awesome, so I love them.  I am a cat and a dog person.  Yay, me!

(How did this blog end up about me?  I may be a little self-centered.)

I Once Was Blind, But Now I See..

Posted on by

1

One of my favorite hymns is “Amazing Grace”.  I love the lyrics.  There is the simplicity in the message that grace is at the root of all that I have been given, but also profoundness in that grace is “sweet” like a sound, can bring me fear, but also calm my fears, and grace can “lead me home.”  And one of my favorite lines in the song is in the first stanza “…was blind, but now I see.”

I can’t imagine being blind, but whenever I sing this line or listen to it sung, I always think about the wonder and amazement someone would have to feelfrom going from darkness to light.  What are the emotions that would tumble over themselves as the world went from this

https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT3ybVc8gQEySR7Q5iW787a90uzLSjJ5e0ThfsxnHy0KXl63Uy9uQ
to this:
http://www.zimfamilycockers.com/CarnivalSpirit-Sunrise2.jpg
I think that I would feel like I was a different person, living in a different world.


I while I haven’t literally had my eyesight restored, I feel like I am now a seeing person, where I was once stumbling around blind.


I am not in the depths of depression.


Over the last four months, I have been pulling, clawing, scrabbling, hauling myself out of a pit so deep, black was all I could see.  And for the last two of the four months, life has been different — brighter, lighter, freer — dare I say, more fun?

This disease with which I live is a monster, a lying, cold-hearted, selfish disease that has demanded all my energy and attention for many years of my life.  I’m not sure when I first knew that I suffered from depression, but I don’t ever remember not being plagued by some of the symptoms of depression, even as a little girl in elementary school.  My ability to manage it and live “depression-free” has varied through the years.  And my ego has played a role in self-delusion that “I have it under control.”

The last thing that I had under control during the past three years was my depression.  It was firmly in control–but nobody had yet admitted it.  So, like a puppet regime, I went through the days like I was in charge, maybe fooling no one but myself.  Maybe fooling everyone.  Only those close to me can answer if they were more aware of my condition than I was.

And that is one of the scary, lying, dangerous games that depression plays with you — it’s those mind games she pulls on her victims all the time.  One minute you KNOW you are on top of your game; the next minute, you’re questioning if you’re competent enough to place your own order at McDonald’s.

But this blog isn’t about reliving the deep valleys that were landscape of my illness, but to recognize and celebrate the joy that I CAN and DO feel now.  The happy moments that I CAN and DO appreciate daily.  The accomplishments that I CAN and DO take pride in and feel worthy of.

My God has a salvation plan for me that extends beyond this life.  I believe this.  My God has also given me a wonderful gift during this life, however, to feel the awesomeness (I just can’t think of a better word) of feeling blind, but finding sight.