Dear jawn:

You are remembering only the good about her, her family, culture and country. This often happens when we lose something or when we feel lost, we remember the past as way more positive than it was. You can make a list of the negatives about your experience with her and focus on a negative when you are caught in an overly positive memory. This way you associate reality to your experience and dissociate from distorted (overly positive, idealizing) reality.

Every time you see the good, in your mind’s eye, add the bad and the ugly as well.

anita

Jawn: Anita’s right. You are romanticizing what was. The Med. isn’t all rainbows and butterflies. Greece’s economy moved beyond swirling the bowl and is somewhere downstream of the toilet. Italy’s isn’t all that great either, same for Spain’s. There are some interesting genetic traits to deal with the climate down there. Go across to the other side of the Sea, and well, there’s not much grand over there.

Strange; northern Europe ranks pretty high in livability, including Norway, Sweden, etc.. Would love to go see it, if I could ever get enough tranquilizers to handle the flight. Haven’t had too many issues with the northern Europeans I encounter out in the Dakotas. Too bad none of the female Finns I’ve encountered are particularly interested… between my British Isles ancestry (queue up Welsh names) and the Finns’ apparent love for vowels in strange places, could have some interestingly named kids…