Things pawpaw said

What is it about getting older that makes memories come flooding back?

Not the big milestone memories. The little ones.

The random sayings. The stories. The things people used to say that somehow stayed tucked away for years until something unexpectedly brings them back.

Recently, I had breakfast with my nephew. When the waitress came by to take our order, he asked, “What’s the sweetest coffee you have here?”

The sweetest coffee.

He basically ordered dessert in a cup.

Now, I love a good latte. Give me a s’mores latte or a dulce de leche latte with a side of eggs, and I’m perfectly happy. But hearing him ask for the sweetest coffee on the menu made me laugh.

Later that day, it reminded me of something from when I was a kid.

Whenever I saw my Pawpaw drinking coffee, I’d want a cup too. Of course, mine was mostly milk and sugar because there was absolutely no chance I was drinking black coffee.

Every time I’d take a sip, he’d grin and say, “That’s gonna put hair on your chest.”

As a kid, I didn’t question it. I just accepted it as fact.

Kind of like when he told us that if we swallowed watermelon seeds, a watermelon would grow in our stomachs.

Funny how those things stick with you.

Lately, memories like that seem to show up more often. Maybe it’s getting older. Maybe it’s menopause. Maybe it’s nostalgia. Whatever it is, those forgotten moments seem to find their way back to the surface when I least expect them.

I can’t be the only one.

One minute you’re ordering breakfast, and the next you’re sitting there thinking about your Pawpaw, coffee cups, watermelon seeds, and all the little things people said forty years ago.

Maybe that’s part of why I write these little posts.

I still don’t know exactly what this is. A blog. A journal. A diary. A collection of random Tuesday thoughts.

Maybe it’s all of those things.

But writing them down helps. It gives those memories somewhere to go besides floating around in my head.

Maybe one day my kids will read them.

Maybe my grandchildren will.

Maybe they won’t.

Maybe some stranger on the internet will stumble across these words years from now and laugh at the thought of coffee putting hair on your chest.

Truthfully, it doesn’t matter much to me who reads it.

What matters is that the memories don’t disappear.

So I’ll keep writing them down as they come to me, one random thought, one old story, one Tuesday memory at a time.

And as the saying goes, there’s no crying on Sundays.