A Time Machine?

From a few of my other posts, you know that I love music, I listen to it all the time, and love discovering new songs.

Another reason I like music? It can almost act as a time machine for me. I hear a song and it takes me back to the first time I heard it, to a happier time, or to any number of experiences or memories attached to hearing that distinct song.

Yesterday as my iPod was shuffling through music on my way to work, a song with particularly painful memories attached to it slipped on. I was about to change it, but something held me back, and I listened. I was immediately transported back to a time months ago--I was sitting in the car with a guy I was dating at the time, we were in a parking garage, and he was playing me this song for the first time. He was explaining how it was his all time favorite, and had me listen to all of the words, laying out to me the importance of the words to him.

I was amazed at how extraordinarily detailed this memory was I could actually smell his car air freshener, I could see the earnestness in his eyes as he tried to portray the meaning of this song, and I could feel the ache in my own heart realizing it was just a memory.

This was the first time I’d allowed myself to listen to this song since things ended with this guy, things had not ended well between us, and it was just too painful to listen to. All the other times before I had skipped right over it. D@#n that iPod shuffle for pulling it up as much as it did. :)

I’m really glad I stopped it this time to listen--as it played, I not only remembered the painful memories, but I started to remember good one’s as well. I pulled myself out of that parking garage, and back to my car. I found myself smiling while listening to the words, and realizing that it wasn’t really painful. Things change and happen for a reason, they get better and you move on. By the end of the song I was singing along to it.

As the last two lines of the song played, and then faded out, I couldn’t help smiling at the appropriateness of them.

‘And so it goes…. And so it goes…’

This time my ‘Music Time Machine’ helped to heal my heart a little.