Back to your youth.

[gavroche]

Do you ever crave the need to go back to revisit a place which was significant in your youth? At the moment I have a strong feeling to go back to Orleans and revisit where I grew up between 1958 and 1962. My mother was running a bar and grocery shop then and , ironically, the road was called " England road". I have been there again a few years ago and of course, everything has changed. The shop is now a house. I would love to knock on the door and ask if I could see inside and bring back so many memories. Maybe I will next time I go to France.

 

[johnnyb47]

Oh yes,
I cycled a 65 mile round trip back to Chester where I lived as a kid.I walked round the paths reminiscing about where I used play on my pedal tractor.Whilst standing outside my old house the neighbour came out to put some rubbish in the bin.After a brief chat of telling her I used to live next door some 50 years ago she actually remembered me and my name.She invited me in for a cup of tea bless her and I told her all about my parents and what's happened to them..She was really old but she remembered everything and brought back some great memories of time's gone by

 

[SpokeyDokey]

No cravings as such but just a mild 'I might do that one day' feeling.

 

[Accy cyclist]

I have been there again a few years ago and of course, everything has changed. The shop is now a house. I would love to knock on the door and ask if I could see inside and bring back so many memories.

I often walk past the back of our, as in mum, dad me and brother's house, which we moved into in August 1963 and ended the 50 year ownership when mum went into a care home in 2013 and always wonder how it is now. It's a sad sight as those who rent it have turned it into a dump, looking at the Sky dish, the settee outside in the back street, the haven't been painted in years windows and the rotting back gate. I, like you would like to have a look inside, but going off the outside I know it'd be quite an upsetting sight. It's best to look at old photos of happy days in that house not wonder how it is now, but sadly I still do.

 

[biggs682]

I like re visiting Bournemouth and surrounding area my family only lived there for just over 6 years in my early 20's . Not worried about visiting other places I have lived .

 

[Dave7]

My home till I was 17 disappeared in order for the PTB to build the new Mersey tunnel. I have some good memories eg . my 1st grope and listening to records on my Dansette record player and radio Luxemburg etc.

 

[Dirk]

I have absolutely no desire to go back and re-visit Birmingham.
Last time I did so, about 10 years ago, I vowed 'never again'; it was too upsetting for me.

 

[Chris S]

I sometimes go back to Oswestry where I went to primary school. Apart from a pedestrianised area it hasn't changed much.

 

[cyberknight]

Regularly cycle through the village I grew up in,it still home even though I haven't lived there in over 40 years

 

[Biker BoB]

I live where I was a youth and I'm still a youth...😲😁

 

[oldwheels]

It can be a mistake to go back and perhaps destroy happy memories.
When cycling I took a diversion to my grandparents croft where I spent summer holidays.
The house had been extended to cover the vegetable garden, the fields were overgrown with rushes and dockens and the steading was tumbledown and ruined.
As I stood looking at this a car appeared and a woman got out of the passenger seat to open the gate.
Somehow her and husband avoided any eye contact and ignored somebody about five yards away in an area with very few people.
He was Wing Commander retd and I discovered later very much disliked locally .
Is it any wonder I tend to distrust and dislike settlers?
Happy memories tarnished.

 

[Biker BoB]

It can be a mistake to go back and perhaps destroy happy memories.
When cycling I took a diversion to my grandparents croft where I spent summer holidays.
The house had been extended to cover the vegetable garden, the fields were overgrown with rushes and dockens and the steading was tumbledown and ruined.
As I stood looking at this a car appeared and a woman got out of the passenger seat to open the gate.
Somehow her and husband avoided any eye contact and ignored somebody about five yards away in an area with very few people.
He was Wing Commander retd and I discovered later very much disliked locally .
Is it any wonder I tend to distrust and dislike settlers?
Happy memories tarnished.

Emmett's suck..,

 

[Cycleops]

Don't even think about it @gavroche just go. You know it's changed so it's current state won't be a shock. You've obviously got a yearning and if you don't go you'll always wonder why. I'm sure you'll find out some interesting stuff from the current incumbents and it will set your heart at ease.

 

[gbb]

Mixed feelings for me. I like occasionally (every 5 or 10 years or so) revisiting places if I'm near, it's good to remember good times especially, places and streets you'd forgotten,then remember stuff in detail, almost walking there again through the eyes you had then.
But then I can go unexpectedly wrong. While passing the local village to our then airbase home, I popped I to the cemetary to see if I could find Chris Chambers grave. I hadn't planned to, I didn't need to, something just made me do it.
He was 8 years old when he drowned In the Trent that bordered the airbase ,a freak slip, in and gone. It took them 2 weeks to find his body.
I vividly remembered (and still do) running desperately down a farm track, kicking up dust as we (his older brother and me), we ran for miles. I vividly remember arriving at his house ,the police were there and I can still hear his mum's pitiful wail.
Maybe 20 years after his drowning, I found myself at his grave...and it all came back to me. I fell into a really deep mini depression for maybe 5 days.

If I visited again, it wouldn't possibly have the same effect. Who knows what triggers those feelings

 

[presta]

It can be a mistake to go back and perhaps destroy happy memories.

This, this, and this.

I actively avoid trying to re-live the past, because it isn't possible, and attempts to do it spoil the memories. When you build memories you gild the lily, remembering the good bits and forgetting the rest, so even if it were possible to recreate the past exactly it's bound to be a disappointment because it never was actually that good. Re-runs of old TV programs are the proof of that, they really are just as they were, but you quickly realise just how little of them contributed to the memories you treasure, with the rest just being dross. For example, TOTP2: good, because it's all cherry-picked golden oldies, TOTP: you're lucky if there's one good song per episode.

In practice, an event is more than just itself, your experience of it depends on all sorts that can't be repeated, from the company you were with, to the weather, to how the rest of your life was going at the time.

The Peak-End Effect demonstrates what's going on. It's tempting to think that your memory of an experience is just the average of the whole episode, but research has shown that this is not the case: your memory of an event, good or bad, is the average of the best (or worst) bit, and the last bit. The peak and the end. This leads to the counterintuitive result that you can make the subjective memory of a bad experience less bad by making the actual experience objectively worse: just add on an extra bit at the end which is less bad than the ending you're appending it to. You can also make a good experience create a better memory: ever heard the phrase leaving the best till last?