A note from Dr. Hendrix
Driving down State Street one spring day, a wave of happiness hit me out of nowhere — and I traced it to a buried memory of driving toward the ocean on Balboa Bay Boulevard decades ago. I wrote it because our minds hide whole treasures from us, and every so often the light hits just right and one floats up.
I’m driving down State Street, in Salt Lake City, going south on a warm, spring sunny day. All of the sudden, boom I feel happy.
“What brought that on?” I asked myself.
The beauty of State Street? Please.
The angle of the sun? Maybe, but not absolutely.
. . . a memory.
Of what?
. . . of driving down Balboa Bay Blvd., in southern California, traveling to the ocean.
Until that moment, I didn’t know I had a memory of that congested street.
It’s just a street I have gone down hundreds of times driving to the ocean.
Am I subconsciously repressing desires to move back to southern California?
Who cares.
A burst of happiness in the present is great even if it’s triggered by a repressed memory. I drive down State Street every chance I get, especially on a warm sunny day.
The same goes for a bad memory.
Last year I had a chance to buy a classic hot rod just like the one I had in high school.
I got out my check book, opened it up, and started writing out the check. All of the sudden some bad memories came flooding in from those high school years.
I had always dreamt of having that kind of classic car, but I closed the checkbook, walked away, and haven’t had those bad memories since.
I think I’ve figured this thing out: Let good memories in, no matter what triggers them, and walk away from bad ones no matter how much wisdom dictates you shouldn’t.
Right?