Music is a time-machine

Music sometimes has a way of grabbing you by the heart and hurtling you into the past. Perhaps I'm more susceptible to it than most - but I don't think I'm alone in this.

I'm sure part of it has to do with nostalgia - which, for most of my life, I've worn around like a favorite threadbare shirt. (I remember when I was twelve thinking that I was going to hate being an 'older kid', and wishing I could stay little...) And I'm sure it has something to do with middle-child neurosis as well...

The effect isn't as powerful as it once was - I'm not quite the emotional litmus paper I used to be - but every so often I find myself enveloped in a fog of past emotions that leave me feeling unsettled and vaguely guilty. (As though to acknowledge my happiness now I have to erase the evidence of any former feeling... Like I'm afraid that old kisses have left stains on my lips...)

But in the gym today (yes - I went!) I heard a song that unexpectedly threw me into a space of emotional limbo - in spite of the fact that it had no previous associations for me... Maybe it was the chord progression, or maybe I just really liked the sound of it - but it gave me that familiar tug that I've grown wary of...

And because I didn't have any attachment to it, I just let it carry me - without any judgment. And in that moment I felt myself to be a thousand different particles - like ingredients in a recipe - coming together at different times to make a unique individual... And the feeling I had - when I let myself just 'be' - was one of overwhelming gratitude. For everything. For all of the blessings in my life now (especially my brilliant and generous husband, and our remarkable daughter, who has inherited her father's kind heart) and for everything -Everything - that has brought me here.