Childhood Flashback

I just had a flashback.

I know that flashbacks are generally negative. They are common among military members with  on at PTSD and those who suffer from traumatic incidents in their lives. But this was a good flashback. Or perhaps I should more accurately call it a memory.

This flashback happened as I walked into my bedroom to close the window that I had left open overnight. I love to sleep with an open window when the weather is neither too hot nor too cold. Living in the high desert, I don’t get to enjoy a lot of nights like this. Last night was one of those good nights. But as the temperature began to rise toward an anticipated high of 89°, I needed to close the window. All of a sudden I was transported back to my childhood. I suddenly recalled, and eve even felt, the experience of being a child sleeping in my bed in my small bedroom in my parents’ house in northern Illinois.

We didn’t have air conditioning back then, and in fact my parents had only a couple of window air-conditioning units many years later. So every summer night we slept with the windows wide open. Usually a small fan was running in each bedroom as well to circulate the air. 

What I experienced this morning was the memory of waking up in my bed to a beautiful, sunny day, with crisp, cool air pouring through the windows.  

That feeling was as real as if I were once again in my parents house. My parents are no longer alive, and their house was sold several years ago. But what a delightful, if brief, memory this was.