Happy Memories

I'm not sure where my fingers are going to take me this morning. I am craving down-time in a quiet and reflective way and what I have received instead is a lot of times where the movie reel of my life has been slowly rewinding and playing for me ...

Music seems to be speaking to me a lot these days. I hear an old, familiar song and I start to feel the way I felt when that music was playing in the background of my life.

I drove for (the better part of) twelve hours this past weekend. It seemed every radio channel I came upon was having a 'Throwback Weekend' from the '80's. I have decided the 1980's must have been a pretty memorable decade for me.

That was the decade I was married (half of the time, anyway ... it was a marriage of an on-again-off-again variety). We went through a phase where we went out dancing almost every Saturday night. The music that was the soundtrack of this past weekend was straight out of those dancing days.

My marriage ended on a pretty sour note (don't they all?) and for those who walked by my side during those dark days, I think that is quite likely all they remember. There were a fair number of dark moments throughout that time but there were also many (lesser known) good times.

I discovered my ability to dance out loud during that decade. There were a lot of dancing memories. That is not altogether a bad thing.

The weekend before this one, was spent in Las Vegas.

Once again, there was music pumped into the streets, restaurants and stores. You couldn't walk a step without being bombarded by music.

No one particular decade stood out but a state of 'happy' was what I felt as the music subconsciously infiltrated my soul. The music simply made me feel good.

It was the memories of a previous trip to Vegas which rose to my subconscious mind this time.

Light and easy memories of a time long ago wafted through my mind. When that relationship ended, he asked me one favor. "Remember the good times we had. Just try to remember the good memories ..."

I have never purposely focused on the negative. But the good times we had together had never flooded my memory bank the way they did when I walked down The Strip at Las Vegas, twenty two years later.

It felt good to look back and simply feel the good memories I have had with the fathers of my children. I'm not going to pick up the phone and try to rekindle any old flame. But I am going to forgive myself for loving and losing.

I don't think I really knew how to love someone completely and totally back then. Perhaps I never will. But I loved with as much of my heart and my soul that I had to give at the time. It wasn't enough. But there were a lot of good memories, for as long as it lasted...