I had a few moments of nostalgia in the last couple of days. Strangely, several of them revolved around music.
The first was yesterday, when I learned the Rob Thomas – the singer for Matchbox Twenty, one of THE groups of my college years – had a new album out. I promptly went to play it on Spotify, and was thrilled to hear a voice that has not changed substantially, a style of music that I always enjoyed, yet with new melodies and new words. It reminded me of good times (and, well, not so good, although those memories seem to be hazier than the good ones…), happy times.
[I am going to gloss over the fact that when I mentioned the new album to my spouse, he responded “Who?”, which led to a long discussion of just exactly WHAT he was going in college, because seriously: how could you go to college in the 90s and not know Matchbox Twenty?!?!?! I mean, he didn’t even remember the duet with Santana for “Smooth”… I was like, who are you, and why did I marry you??]
This morning at the gym, the song playing when I left was one that I did not know the correct lyrics to in college. I think I alluded to this in my “Things I stink at” post, but one thing I truly, truly stink at is accurate knowledge of song lyrics. It’s like a mental block. Let’s just say that my errors for this particular song were hilarious once my roommates and I figured out what I was singing, vs. what the lyrics actually WERE. I laughed out loud when I realized what the song was, and the memory immediately came back. It was a good start to the day. (Well, that, and the really good run I had.)
Going back to those times – even if just for a moment – makes me smile. Makes me happy. And yet I worry that I am seeking to return to a time when things were “good”, when I hadn’t yet had to grow up and travel the curves in the road that life has been to this point.
The curves, the hurdles, the stop signs…they have made me who I am today. I like who I am today…but I also like revisiting who I was. Feeling things again. I wouldn’t change a thing, because then I wouldn’t be who I am now, and I would be doing what I do now, where I am doing it.
So I’ll take the nostalgia, and the really good new album (Thank you, Rob!), and enjoy it in the now. Songs of the past, brought into the future. Works for me.