I don’t know about you, but I’m really loving the Downton Abbey series on PBS, also known as Masterpiece Classic (as I found out when attempting to set a DVR to record!). We here in the States just started Season Four.
Whether or not you have a fascination with the past, it is fun for me to see how it was to live in “another time.” And admitting to it, yes, I like many others have a curiosity about that “upper crust” lifestyle and how semi-royalty wiled away their days and evenings. For those of you watching, you’ll know Carson, who “runs” the household behind the scenes for the family of the manor. A rather stoic fellow, who shows very little feeling or heart on most days.
We found out recently that as a younger man, he had a “love interest” who had broken his heart when she picked his best friend over himself. One assumes he’s never loved again. Last night one of his staff members surprises him with a gift, a framed photo of his lost love. She suggests he display it on his desk so the whole staff will see a softer side to Carson. His next comment had me running for a pen and paper – to share here.
Carson says, “The business of life is the acquisition of memories, in the end that’s all there is.” It got my attention because as someone who sometimes wastes too much time “reliving the past” in my mind I am full of memories both good and bad. While I may try very hard to forget the bad memories, and only think about the happy memories, in “the end” – that IS all we have.
Our lives are always going to be a full combination of the sum of those memories, both happy and sad and the key I suppose is knowing how to go forward with those same memories? Trying not to be bogged down with the unhappy ones – a challenge to be sure. However we can all try to be happy with the positive ones and living with the hope that on balance, there will be more of those in our future.
Here’s to many more happy ones for all of us in 2014.
suddenlysinglewomen 