I was talking to a friend of mine the other night about music. It was harmless enough—talking about Nirvana and The Smashing Pumpkins—but then nostalgia started doing the thing it does, when it instantly beams you back to a long forgotten moment in time and makes you feel things you don’t necessarily want to feel, but it hurts so good. It’s that car wreck that keeps you from averting your eyes. Ya know what I mean?
On this particular trip down memory lane, I landed back at my high school orientation. As I recall, that 14-year-old girl felt many things that day: scared, shy, embarrassed, lonely, and exposed. What will usually happen on a look-back, such as this one, is that I’ll let myself be taken away; I’ll feel all the feelings and get lost in the mini-movie in my mind. I’ll sit in the sadness for a little while and feel a deep sense of loss. On this night, however… I didn’t. Instead, I laughed. I laughed at, ultimately, how small that moment really was. And I smiled knowing that there was a big world full of big experiences yet to be had. But why? Why, this time, did I feel joy instead of melancholy?
Continue reading “surrender to the sound…”
