Blissed out or exquisite calm

I guess because hubby has a cold (again) and the past 2 nights M has slept in bed with us pretty much all night due to barking seal cough and G threw a temper tantrum before leaving Mamaw's house after our Thanksgiving celebration.....maybe this is why I started thinking about occasions in my life when I have felt either blissed out or insanely serene.

Because as thankful as I am for my life and everyone in it, sometimes the day-to-day drudgery requires one to harken back to the biggest moments of greatness or calmness or joy or love that one has felt.

For certain I can't pull all of them out of my brain at one time, but there are some that consistently stand out.  Tonight I remembered standing on top of a hill in Wales when I was 19.  It was nearing dark, and it was extremely windy.  I don't know if I was alone or with someone, but seeing the clouds move and the sun set, the rolling hills....it was just amazing.

Another was in 8th grade when my class put on a Good Friday play.  I was the "set director," I guess, and I recall standing in the balcony at the back of church watching the part where Jesus is nailed to the cross.  We had a big wooden cross and one of the Roman soldier actors used a mallet against the wood.  The whack-whack-whack echoed in the church, and I felt startled.  It was overwhelming to me, and perhaps the only time I ever actually felt a god-like presence within a church building.

Of course the instantaneous flooding of love and tears when each of my children were born stands out in my head.  That is a feeling I wish I could turn on and off like a faucet.  Sometimes when I'm dealing with tantrum #467 since breakfast (and it is only snack-time), I would like to feel flooded with love so I don't knock someone's head off.

At the time I didn't feel particularly blissed out, although the memory of this does it for me now---walking through Sorrento Italy as well as the Isle of Capri with D.  I just remember little blips of the narrow streets as we walked and walked, and it brings a smile to my face.

I think because I am guilty of over-reflecting....chewing on stuff for way longer than necessary and then blogging about it....I tend to always be pretty cognizant of the little "big" things for which I should be thankful---health, a family, a home, food in my fridge, being educated. etc.

Sometimes it is nice to be thankful for those "once in a lifetime" experiences and the feelings that went with them.