You know when you hear that song, that doesn't just spark a memory, but brings back emotion? Either a song that makes you remember a happy time and you just get pumped, or one of those songs that used to make you happy, but now you're sad because that thing isn't there to make you happy, or the song that made you sad and just hearing it makes you wanna cry?
When I was a wee little thing, I listened to these haunting lullabies. Every night they'd play quietly through our little stereo and I just laid in my little mermaid comforter tracing the designs created by wall bumps...on the wall... and sobbing my little heart out. These songs made me think of my mother dying, they made me think of death and just get anxiety about the smallest things. (I had counseling as a child over worry stomach aches--I was basically nuts and I half-way blame these lullabies).
PS this picture is creepy!
Sometimes my mind would just go to a place that a little girls mind seems incapable of. I'd think of the concept on infinity, eternity and death. I thought about if life was actually just a book that someone was reading, like the Princess Bride. What if we were just a story? Then I thought about if that was a story, then that was a story-- kinda like those shirts where there's a guy with a shirt wearing a shirt with a guy with a shirt… and so on. It's like the mirrors exactly parallel from each other that go on forever and ever. Where does eternity begin and when will it end? As a little girl listening to these songs I'd just get so deep about life.
I was laying down to take a little night nap before tonight's events and one of these lullabies came on shuffle. Even in college these songs haunt my emotions, they just depress my heart instantly.
It got me thinking about other songs and other memories that are tucked away. I have realized something about myself vs. other people. I was talking with the boy I loved in high school when I was home during Spring break and I started feeling sad remembering things and being happy with him and realizing I missed those days. Well, I told him that this is the first time in a while I felt really sad about the whole thing. And he was upset because he felt sad about it all the time, every night.
Same thing with my family... I should miss them with all my heart. And I do, when I think about it. I just gotta push on though, not think about things that should make me sad.
I know why I'm different now. I block out the memories. When I want to be happiest I live in the moment or look at the future, I don't dwell on the happy parts of sad parts of my past… I just can't. I relate most definitely to stories upon stories that are worth rethinking and sharing, but I don't just sit down during dinner and think about family dinners or ice blocking Saturdays...
When this song came on I was thinking about playing in the neighborhood Pokemon cards, taking walks through the cougar woods with my dad and sisters, looking through the cracks of the deck, running through the trees, getting cars to honk from our trampoline, fake crying in the elementary school fields with rain puddle tears to get attention from my crush, I thought about how I used to always have the guy to love me, how I would do the most diabolical things with my best friend and tell her everything. And those were ALL happy times, they were AMAZING times. Why does remembering the pews of the Lacey stake center hit my heart, why do rain clouds make me MISS home… why do I feel sad over happy times? Well because times change.
The SAME changes.
And we have to change with it.
I'm not the same girl who used to run around playing batman and robin…
I'm not the same girl who thought she had life figured out at sixteen…
I'm still growing up. And growing up is bittersweet. I love it. Even the sad times make the happier times happier! I love being the age I am. I love being young. When you grow WAY up and say "those were the days," THESE are the days we're talking about. I am living it up. I am having the time of my life and the only way I can is to not think that anything in my past was better than this.
I never want to be stuck in my past… I want to be striving for my future. Today is better than yesterday. And tomorrow will be even better. That's the mindset.
You see what I'm saying? Those songs really make me think.
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