When I think about memories making me happy, I am thinking about the present. How am I feeling today? Does that memory add something to the present or is it stuck in the past?
When I was choosing my word for 2022, present memories was one of the reasons why I chose the word present.
Just looking at our photos or remembering moments can bring happiness to today. I love that! Looking back at happy memories makes me happy in the present.
I went a step further when we revisited our old apartment and wedding reception hall on our anniversary a couple of years ago. Upon reflection, I am recognizing that the new memories felt different for our apartment and wedding reception hall.
First, we went inside our old condo building that I absolutely love. It's one of my favourite buildings in Toronto. I love flat iron buildings and having actually lived in one when we first moved to Toronto was amazing.
When we got engaged, we went up to the roof to take photos so we wanted to recreate that moment on this anniversary. The photo of me has the revolving restaurant at the top of the Westin Harbour Castle in the background - where my husband proposed.
We also wanted to see the changed skyscape with all the new buildings. In 2010, while walking from Lake Ontario to our house in midtown, I stopped and went up to the roof to reminisce and see the view. You can read that blog post here.
We thought it would be fun to see the views from the 1990's, 2010 and 2019. I LOVE the CN Tower and always marvel when I see it, so seeing it from our old building once again was extra special. The photo below of me is from 2010. The 2019 photo on the right is my husband taking a photo with the new L Tower.
Next, we walked in to the Novotel next door where we had our wedding reception. The front desk area had changed, but we remembered the old front desk where we stood for what seemed like an hour while they tried to find our reservation. With an early morning flight for our honeymoon, we had gone home to change into our "going away outfits" and brought our luggage to be sent to our room before we returned to our recption. Not the happiest moment to be reminded of.
From the lobby we climbed the curved staircase to the reception hall which was locked. We looked out the hallway glass door to see the patio where some people may have gone out to cool down but I don't remember going out there for long. I tried to conjure up warm or happy feelings. Of course, I'm happy that we got married and had a great reception there, but seeing it on this day didn't add any value to those memories.
The reception hall didn't have a great view like the condo rooftop did. It also reminded us of a bad experience. Sometimes, bad experiences happen for a reason and it turns out for the better or becomes a funny story, but this one didn't really have that. I love the memories and photos I have of our wedding dinner and reception, but maybe the location itself isn't that important.
During my Revive55 Project, I was trying to "revive" memories, but sometimes, some memories are just that. Moments in time to treasure. Keep what you love and let go of what you don't.
