Lovely.

So very nice... toe to toe.

Really? Nothing good to say? ?

@BeeHappy
Hey, what's better than an all night argument when you can barely hold your eyes open and have to go to work at 7:30 AM?

Divorced?

@freeofgod

Never married.

@skado Hmmm, ok, sounds like you had a bad experience. Can't say I can relate to that one specifically. Although your sarcasm comes through loud and clear, is there nothing positive you miss?

@BeeHappy
I’m just being silly, Bee. And also being a little bit Zen about the idea of missing things. It’s easy to remember the good stuff and long for another time, but that time was probably no better than right now.

@skado Whew! You had me worried there. It didn't sound like you. I'm not sure I get the zen thing though. Right now I don't have some of those special things that couples share. So how can now be as good as when I did have those things? Is this one of those deep thinkers kind of things? Lol. Are you saying it's different not necessarily better or worse?

@BeeHappy
When you had those things, was everything totally perfect every day in every way?

@skado No of course not. But that doesn't mean I don't miss those things that were.

@TheAstroChuck Yes, it was. ?

@TheAstroChuck
I can appreciate the pragmatism and I can appreciate the “now ex”!

@BeeHappy
Ok think for a moment about the very worst aspects of that relationship. Would you like to bring those moments back into your life right now?

@MissKathleen
So I can rejoice in its current absence.

@MissKathleen

No. Just pointing out that they probably weren’t.

@MissKathleen
There are plenty of wonderful moments in my past I could revisit if I wanted to spend my present accessing them.

Two things to keep in mind:
One is that you probably can’t have one without the other, so why miss the good memories and make yourself feel empty, rather than miss the bad stuff and make yourself feel liberated.

But the more important of the two is that every second you spend in the past is a second of your life you’re not spending in the here and now where your real life is occurring, and where, if you are skilled at staying strictly present, everything is always just fine (no matter what is happening).
It is only when our awareness drifts into memories of the past or anxieties about the future that we experience suffering. If something horrible is happening in the present we may not like it or might even be terrified by it, but we don’t actually “suffer” over it until we reflect upon it, even if that reflecting is one second later; the event is now one second in the past. If we stay persistently in this moment, there is never any suffering.
Every minute spent remembering what we no longer have is a minute not spent creating something to have now.

@MissKathleen
My comments are based on the subject of the OP which is “missing”, not recalling pleasant memories. Nothing wrong with that. I enjoy my pleasant memories when they pop up, but I don’t invest energy into missing something I no longer have.

@skado I may have it now after reading the thread with @misskathleen. The idea is to stay in the present and 'missing' something from the past takes you out of the present. Where recalling pleasantries or reminiscing doesn't. Do I have that right? (You know you have to make it simple for this thick head of mine. Lol! )

@BeeHappy
That’s pretty much it. Technically, any remembering takes you out of the present, so if you wanted to be a fanatical Buddhist you might see even dwelling on pleasant memories a failure of practice. But my original comment was just pointing out that ‘missing’ the good stuff brings a hollow feeling, whereas missing the bad stuff brings a sense of relief.

Personally, I don’t see any harm in enjoying the occasional pleasant memory (I also don’t shave my head and meditate all day) but I’m enough of a Buddhist to try to stay in the present every chance I get.

@skado Gotcha! ?