Music is perhaps one of the fastest and scariest vehicles to a place filled with emotions we may not know, understand or be able to process on our own. It’s where I find myself at times and at times I have to turn the music off. How can something so harmless feel so threatening? Each song is connected to a memory, to a person, a moment. I remember the words that are said and the actions that were taken. The click in my head is the very song we listen to while trying to figure out a way to see hope or feel joy. But the song ends, the people leave. The lyrics will live on and the music will cause me to fear and tremble. All that is left is the empty spot where someone once was and sounds playing that melt the loss into my very bones. Oh, how many songs have been ruined for me this way. I am not careful enough in choosing who I experience my music with, for once they depart all that is left is the emptiness I will be reminded of every single time I hit play.
I listen to ‘Dust in the Wind’ and am immediately sucked back into time. A trip to California where I was to transport several pounds of Methamphetamine back to Washington State. That isn’t what ended up happening. It is a long story better suited for a memoir(one day). I remember driving the car on our way home. My friend asleep in the passenger seat as I drove over Shasta Lake North to a life I didn’t know how to live. This was the first time I remember ever hearing this song. I remember thinking to myself that it was incredible I had never heard it before. It spoke all of my emotions in that moment. This would have been around 2003-2004. Almost 20 years ago and I am so scared because it feels both like it happened last week and like I am not even sure it happened at all. For me, recalling most memories feels like a scary event to me. Nothing feels completely real. I am not sure why or where that comes from. Maybe that’s how everyone feels, I don’t know.
I do know that this song is a vortex that pulls me back to a sadness I never want to feel again, but here we are. Missing the lost friends of that time. Curious about how they are doing. Curious about what really happened. The memories of being so lost and realizing that those parts of me are never fully healed and may never be. Do I just decide to keep the music off? Try to forget and move on? At least back then I thought there was something or someone who could save me.
Now I know that doesn’t exist and all that is left is me.
“Now don’t hang on,
Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.
It slips away.
And all your money won’t it not a minute buy.”
Everything really is dust in the wind. Soon none of us will be here. I guess that can be seen as both a very good thing and a very bad thing.
Thanks for reading.
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