Have you ever heard that song that just takes you back. It takes you back so far, you forget how far you’ve come and how amazingly different the world around you is today?
I remember distinctly, sitting in my childhood living room window- watching my mother pull-up in the driveway.
She LOVED music.
It was the generation before parents asked their children what THEY wanted to listen to.
Sometimes her and I would just drive.
Both feeling heavy in our hearts in our own ways, letting the music take us AWAY.
We would drive, windows rolled down, hair wildly waving. Music Loud. Joyously loud. Enough to FORGET IT ALL…
…loud…
Everything is SO, very, very, loud now..
ALL THE TIME.
Kids running, screaming, crashing, laughing, playing, crying, fighting. Living.
…..
My mom would sit in her car until her favorite songs ended.
Enjoying each last drop of the bliss.
The weirdly loud, yet settling- seemingly quieting the soul…music.
The melody and lyrics taking her away to somewhere different.
I don’t dare call it a fairytale, because she doesn’t believe in those. But maybe, just maybe, carrying her away to somewhere she smiled a bit more.
It’s interesting, how no matter how far we run from our history, it has a way of staying with us.
I find myself doing the exact same things she did.
It makes smile fondly and want to be someone else all in the same breath.
I drive with children ALL THE TIME. I turn down the music. I answer their questions.
I smile, laugh, and yell for them to keep their hands to themselves.
But in those stolen moments when I am alone.
When I am not rushing to be somewhere in a timely, but late fashion.
I turn it up.
For there is a song for every single one of my moods.
I turn it up louder-
For there is a song for every single one of my memories.
The ones I long to return to, for just a quick taste, and the ones I wish I could change.
Riding around in ALL of my second-hand cars, belting out Taylor Swift with my best friend.
Remembering the steps to my favorite dance we learned with Ms. Terri and the uncontrollable ability to stop singing or executing the dance steps regardless of my location.
Learning that first loves obsession with music and listening to John Mayer and Dave Mathews Band for hours on end.
Realizing that my husband and I both know all of the lyrics to “We didn’t Start the Fire,” and the laughter that came from belting it out in the hotel bed that night.
Playing “Red,Red,Wine,” for my baby boys first song when he entered our world.
I turn it up.
Recalling the whistfull moments of my youth. The excitement of the unknown potential of my twenties, and now what feels like a culmination of sorts in my thirties.
Its all of my favorite songs, mixed together, with all of the emotions, turned up at MAXIMUM Volume.
This is my life now.
This my job.
Mom first.
Everything else second.
All emotions, all of the time, most of the time- at a deafening volume.
So yes Mom. I too.. turn up the volume.
To remember and to forget.
xoxox,
second mom club.
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