Melodies of My Memories
Music is a wonderful and powerful emotional vehicle. It can make you laugh, cry, dance, rejoice, grieve, etc. Music is perhaps one of the most pure and universal languages next to love. It knows no boundaries and is as diverse as the people who listen to it.
But music is also closely linked to memory. There are so many songs that remind of times gone by, be they happy or sad, and the people that have come and gone in our lives during those periods. Music can bring them all back again in our minds, along with the memories...
Case in point, tonight I was listening to Sarah McLachlan's album Surfacing while doing some updates to the site. It has been years since I have listened to this CD and I had forgotten just how beautifully haunting and timeless it is. But more so, it brought back memories of my best friend from High School, Megan.
Megan and I were inseparable. We shared everything from philosophies, to passions, to dreams of creative freedom and success. My friendship with her was one of the happiest times of my life. Even when things were rough, we had each other.
Sarah McLachlan was one of the artists we mutually loved, and Surfacing was the album that seemed to encompass the legacy of our deepest joys and pains. So listening to it again after all of this time there were emotions released that have been silently encapsulated for a long time. Out of sight and out of mind.
I will not go into detail, it is not necessary, but the end of my friendship with Megan was long, volatile, bitter, and painful. We both had problems we were dealing with at the time, both in our lives and with each other. Our friendship twisted in upon itself and strangled what remained of our love for each other. In the end we parted ways without really saying goodbye. On the one hand it felt unfinished yet on the other it seemed very apropos. We had become so close over the years that certain things didn't need to be said. Looking back, I guess our last goodbye was one of them.
I have no more bitterness left in me about it. No more anger to vent, no more tears to shed. It is what it is. Life moves like the tides to the shore, always going forward, only drawing back upon itself briefly in preparation of the next wave. Megan and I had a wonderful relationship for the most part, and neither time nor its unpleasant end can ever take that away. It was what it was, and it ended the way it ended.
Perhaps my not listening to this CD for so long was more subconsciously deliberate than simply forgetful. That period of my life was very painful and after a while it was necessary to block it out completely in order to heal and move on. I have long since made peace with all that happened, but every now and again I drift back in my mind to those carefree days that while dramatic were so very innocent. We all had hopes and dreams. We all had plans for our futures. In the aftermath some came true, though most not as we had expected, some became other things entirely, and others simply died. We've all traveled roads we never thought we would, many of which we never knew existed. And through the dark, twisted jungles surrounding those paths we have come to the place we are today. The journey has helped forge us into who we are. I have no regrets.
Be it destiny or choice, this is where we are all meant to be at this very moment. There are lessons still to be learned and treasures still left buried in the tombs of the past. There was a time I would have looked back and become sad or even cried. Now, I look back and I feel a sense of peace and I smile. You can't go back again but you don't have to grieve forever either. There is joy and beauty to be found even in sadness. You just have to open your heart and mind to it in order to find it.
