nostalgia

do you ever hear a song that immediately takes you back to a specific time and place and memory? so vivid that you can almost see the people you were with down to the way the light hit their face or the way the air smelled or the way the pavement sounded under the tires of the car you were riding in? Sometimes the first few chords hit you hard in the stomach with that leaves you gasping for air. Sometimes the the first few words leave a smile lingering on your face as you pause to relive the moment that comes so fast you literally don't think twice.

I am nostalgic tonight.

Whenever I start to clean my room, I always end up sitting on the floor with my back against my bed, thumbing through my blue binder, full of letters and photos from my best friend and reliving our adventures and story. That leads me to my iTunes playlist with over 50 songs that he made for me almost a year ago titled "this is love" and i finish cleaning my room listening to it and sometimes singing along. It's a really good playlist.

But there are a few songs that when they start playing, I am physically frozen in the middle of whatever I'm organizing because I am reliving a moment or a memory. And I realize that I am so grateful for memories and for the opportunity I have to escape to them every once in a while. I've learned that there is a fine line between living in the past and visiting the past. One has the tendency to destroy a person, the other has the ability to strengthen a person. The past can't be changed and that's a hard thing to come to terms with at times. But, I've realized that the past builds our futures. We are literally built out of experiences; things we've done or seen or been through. What's the point of doing something if you can't remember it or visit that memory? How are you to remember the things you have learned or the people who changed you or inspired you? Living in a memory isn't wise, but living with memories makes all the difference.

I embrace my memories-the good, the bad and the beautiful. Especially the beautiful. Without taking the time to remember my life, I forget the things I learned, and I have done an awful lot of learning over the last five years.

So tonight, I'm going to fall asleep while wandering in memories of late night drives and icy air, the wave of headlights running across the back wall of a guest room, blue bows and bare feet, the feeling of a bald head under my hand and the beep of an IV pole and the sound of a clear river running over boulders. Because my memories make me who I am.