Yesterday was my grandmother’s 100th birthday and with the celebration came a rush of memories.
I have so many good memories of my grandparent’s house in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
The ones I remember most are the ones that are etched in my senses.  The taste of the tea with way too much sugar and far too much milk in it which was deemed sensible for children’s tastes, freshly squeezed orange juice from oranges just picked from the trees in the garden, the smell of woven baskets and polish, the sounds of certain birds.  My grandmother was the queen of making fudge and biscuits which she would hide in the grocery cupboard.  The smell of the soap stored in the same cupboard will always make my tongue tingle because I knew that the fudge had to be somewhere in there.  Sometimes we were lucky and we found it, other times not so much….

Now in my old age (well, old enough to have a grandmother who is 100), just the thought of these things makes me happy.  And even better still, sipping orange juice or sitting down with a cup of tea (now with no sugar and far less milk) can calm me down in an instant because it creates a flashback to happier times of childhood.

Hopefully everybody has some happy childhood memories.  You might not have had a perfect childhood but I’m sure you have one or two memories that make you smile.
Can you recreate those memories in adulthood?
Is there a snack that you can eat or something that you can smell in the middle of a stressful day at work that will have the ability to calm you down?
Can you create some time to do the things that really used to make you feel happy?
You may be surprised at how a simple thing can just settle your heart rate, slow down your breathing and make you feel that all is right with the world even if it is for just 5 minutes.  And if that means an extra spoon of sugar in your tea (or a dollop of condensed milk) than who are any of us to argue?