Nostalgia Overload

Merry Hump Day. You can officially start making weekend plans. Mine include apple picking and wine tasting with some friends on Saturday afternoon! I was told it would cost under 20 smackaroos and that is all I needed to hear, besides that there would be wine, of course. I will have to class it up and taste wine the right way; pretending I care about the color and clarity (I thought that only mattered with diamonds, a much more important thing to inspect thoroughly) and then committing moral sin by spitting out a perfectly good gulp of Merlot.

I will be sure to report of my tipsy apple picking shenanigans. I have been apple picking before and it is a wholesomely fun time (if you are not obsessing over where the baking apples are amongst 1,238 other different types of non-baking apples, like myself.) But granted, I made some delicious cobblers with the ones I chose. Find a recipe that seems easiest, or most difficult if you are up for the challenge and get your hands dirty. Hey, I gave you something to do this weekend. You owe me.

So I had a couple of glasses of champagne last night and I did some internet creeping. This type of creeping was so productive and inspirational (see blog below), I had to pull myself from the keyboard to stop from flooding a post with pictures, poems and cute animated .gifs of Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin. I was so moved by photography at one point I had to get up. I will inform you now that two glasses of cheap champagne does not make me piss drunk, just slightly emotional. I was going through a girl’s Tumblr blog and it was filled with these pictures and quotes from various Charlie Brown episodes. I felt overwhelmingly nostalgic. I was missing my youth and I am still young. I am talking about all the things that make childhood worth remembering. Where are those feelings anymore? I am only 24 years-old. How could I have forgotten what it feels like to feel warm, and at home? I have forgotten. Reading Charles Schulz was moving me immensely. Fifteen years ago when I was hugging my filthy Snoopy stuffed animal in front of the console television, I never got the context of Charlie Brown. It was basic, I was basic. I was a child. But did adults get the fantastic metaphors of Schulz’s work, existing vastly throughout the Great Pumpkin? There are relatable struggles with emotions and beliefs that I just realized, well more than a decade later. If you have never seen the Great Pumpkin, it is most likely on some basic cable network, especially at this time of year.

These underlying messages often found in children’s cartoons are relevant today but we hear and see them now as secret political or sexual innuendos, as to appeal to the parents who are the ones spending money. It is in fact true that they exist. The more I looked at the innocence of Linus and Charlie Brown, Peppermint Patty and even that bitch Lucy, the more I wanted to know. Why is anything G-rated a thing of the past? Not 1990′s “The Little Mermaid past”, but much earlier on. Well, Google served me well. Here is a list of the Top 10 Dirtiest Sexual Innuendos in Children’s Cartoons (not by me).  Interesting.

So today in the hustle and bustle of midweek functions, find some time to reflect on your childhood. I mean, really think about it. What have you forgotten? Try and place those feelings of peace and simplicity into your day. Overwhelming, it can be, but you will feel light and airy, and so much sad happiness will take over. It is good to remember an easier time. It hurts when we know we cannot sit in our father’s lap and tell him our dreams, stay up late anticipating Santa Claus, playing in dirt because it was all we knew of fun. This stuff hurts. We cannot let ourselves forget. These memories make us who we are, for a lifetime, whether we choose to remember or not. 

“My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?”