tada da da dan dan...where everybody knows MY name...

Yesterday, I was all around town doing errands. And it was just like any other ordinary California Monday, except as the day progressed, I felt alot lighter - happier even. Please allow me to share with you why.

When I am in the US, my frame of mind is different than if I were anywhere else. I have lived here more than half of my life and I see people around town that take the time to remember me and let us be honest about it - when people remember you by name or take the time to ask for your name - by golly it feels good!

Okay, I go to the bank and everyone I know asks me about my weekend. Cora said I looked very good parting my hair in the middle. At the post office - the person that helped me asked me to close my eyes because she liked the way I did my eyeshadow application. When I went to a grocery store, the cashier said - if I forgot to buy Snapple (she remembered the flavor I prefer), I told her I was there to get something else. I went to Target, the guy I buy my phone minutes from says he recognizes me from previous visits and can help me in the electronics department since there was a long line with the cashiers up front.

My makeup purveyor was asking me when I am leaving again for my next trip. My hairdresser knows almost everything there is to know about me and my hair. The cook at my new Mexican taco stand - Rolando - knows that when I buy something there - I like my order with just a little bit of sour cream and loads of guac, and never with extras I do not like on my rolled taquitos.

I have friends here who gets worried when I am in town and I do not call them to meet for coffee or lunch or visit their house or something. I like the feeling that I have people around me that know my name.

It feels good, it feels very, very good to have all these acquaintances and friends around me. My friend, Missy, gets reall worried when I do not spend time with her and the kiddies. Funny Missy.

I like being in California. Being here makes me feel good.

I can hear the the diddy go...tada da da dan dan...where everybody knows your name...

Things are looking up.

Great moments of our lives never return.

Sometimes we tend to just focus on what is not happening that we fail to see what we have actually accomplished and are capable of accomplishing.

John Lennon said - Life is what happens when we are busy making plans. How true that is. We over plan, we over think and we miss what our life has to offer. I miss that point sometimes and so it gives me great comfort when reality pokes me at time to remind me to get on with the living.

As I get older I tend to really forget all the great times that I had in the past, it happens to me subconsciously, for I do not make an effort to forget. I just simply... forget.

A testament to my not living in the past, I guess - which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you see or interpret it - but to me, it is a good thing. I resolve that since great moments in life never return, I just make new great moments today and then be really there at that very moment when it happens in the future.

I do not linger on what might have been anymore or where the blame lies and why things are happening they way they do around me - even if it saddens me. I have discovered that in my case bad memory is a blessing. I am not speaking about bad times in life -we all have those but what I am referring to are the good times as well. Good times in the past should remain there - untouch and untainted, and forgotten. They were great during that moment but it will never happen again. So why live there or why relive it? For what purpose?

We are here amongst the living to make memories for the living not for the past. It might sound cold to others but if you really think about it - it is today and now that matters; for it will pave for the good memories for tomorrow and if we ever forget - we still hold on not to the fading memories but the wonderful feeling that will surely last us a lifetime. That is what I am talking about.

Please note that I am not talking about history here - this is just plain personal memories we are talking about.

I have had some great memories in my past and I am for life grateful for them but I would like to make new happier great memories from this point forward.

A wise advise given to me goes like this - In life, beginnings are usually scary and endings are usually sad, but it is what is in the middle that counts the most. I think in the middle of it all, we are given numerous and endless chances to create great memories with different people, places and time and we should do it over and over again - create new great memories, I mean.

The old great memories will never return and it is for the best I believe because then maybe if we keep reliving memories in the past we will stop making new opportunities for ourselves and for others to create new ones. For anything short of what has not happened yet - might not be good enough and so why even try - so in that sense we already failed.

Here's to new great memories!