Sometimes the dilemma and the therapy are the same thing. Sometimes the problem is that you just want to lie in bed, listening to songs that remind you of past times. Not necessarily better times, just times that you won’t ever get back again; things you are no longer capable of seeing or feeling or living because they are now the past. Ironically, you spend this time reminiscing about the very path that you got you to where you are now, and these memories you dwell on were accomplished by living in the moment. Rarely do we remember a night laying in bed with Broken Social Scene and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! playing, but often do we spend nights like this thinking about the first time we heard “Cause=Time” in the backroom of Mike Morrissey’s house in high school after getting stoned for one of the first times. The only cure is to ride the wave, so to speak. Go with the memories for as long as you need to and once you’re nostalgia has passed, you’ll be more than ready to live your life again. That’s not to say that you should ever forget about listening to “Tidal Wave” while driving on the first perfect day of summer with three of your best friends on the way to Mill Pond to jump off the ropeswing…you just shouldn’t spend all your time thinking about how that ropeswings cut down now and the three of you haven’t been in a car together for years.
Everyone dwells on some memories; this comes from having experienced any events that were more important to you than you realized at the time. You never realize in the moment how important those small memories will become to you, and even when they’ve become so important there is no “why”. They just are, and you spend little time questioning it. They are there, in part, to remind you of the beauty of life and the moments when you felt the most “alive”. Never again will I be able to feel so purely 16 as I did during the moments I lived at age 16, but listening to the songs again can make me feel close. Is that something to aspire to? No. Something to be ashamed of? Even more certainly no.
