Sometimes the Past is a Fuzzy Place

This may be my last post until Sunday or Monday. I will be away from my computer for a bit.

This is supposed to be a "What am I Learning" day. Not sure I know what I am learning. Got something else to talk about anyway. The song I chose for Music of the Day.

Remember how I've talked about music affecting me in ways not always intended by the writer, or performing artist? This song kind of falls into that realm in a bigger way than most. The song is a kind of transporter device. Every time I hear it I find myself back in 1975. I am a teenager again, and I know no more than I did back then. I am the same person, without the years of experience to aid me. And I relive something which - I know this sounds crazy - I'm not even sure even happened.

Have you ever lived through an experience which was so surreal you wondered if you weren't dreaming? You need the confirmation of those who were with you to assure you that it really did happen.

I recall hearing an old soldier from WWII talking about walking through a city in Europe which had been blasted apart by one side or the other. He walked around a corner and found a building which had the outside wall blown away, but the rest totally intact. It was like a doll house. Inside, at the kitchen table, was a family of four, sitting as pretty as you please with their breakfasts. All dead. The concussion of the blast had killed them without inflicting visible damage. Afterward, he struggled with the memory because he wasn't sure it had actually happened. It wasn't until he attended a reunion with some buddies that it came out they remembered it too. Then he knew it had been real.

The same can be true with dreams. Ever have a dream so vivid you wake and wonder if it wasn't real? Only the lack of confirmation from those in the dream proves it wasn't real.

Well that's what this song does for me. Only there was only one other with me, and I can no longer find them to confirm the reality or fantasy of the incident. After thirty-four years I still can't make up my mind whether it happened or not. It's troubling, because I don't think there is any other instance in my life where this has happened. And I'm not always sure what I want to believe. I know what I should want to believe, but to h*ll with that. I just want to know.

The song brings me back. I'm listening to it now and part of me is again struggling with the reality - or lack thereof - of what happened. Or didn't happen.

If it was true, then someone did love me - until it was over. If not, I was as alone as I remember. Both have their own level of painful recollection. To lose someone's love is more painful than anything else. Save, perhaps, never having tasted that love in the first place.

I know current love is supposed to supercede past love, and the pains of youth are supposed to fade away and be replaced with the joys of adulthood. I guess I never made it to adulthood, for the pains of youth remain as real to me today as they were back then. And while I am immeasurably comforted by the love I have today, I cannot forget the love which went before.

I guess that means there's something wrong with me. But this song haunts me like no other. Most of the time when I hear it on the radio I will change the station. Yet here I am listening to it on purpose, wishing - it were real. Today I wish it really happened. But I don't know. I just don't know. I guess I really am crazy, huh?