Music, Emotions and Memories

For me, music makes the world go round.  It can create, enhance or destroy my mood.  Yes, it holds great power over me, if I so choose.

This morning I was ironing (which as an aside, is the only thing I don't like about summer clothes) while listening to www.Pandora.com.  I'm just singing away, grateful for a distraction from my task, when a song comes on the immediately transports me back more years than I care to remember ~ back to my divorce.  Back to standing in a sporting goods store with my young son and feeling the same nauseous emotions I felt then when this song came over their sound system.  At the time, I couldn't even stay in the store,  but had to grab my son and escape from the power of that song.

And here I am, many years removed and having fully forgiven, and that song once again gripped me in its power.  It's not as powerful anymore, but it still elicited a sadness that allowed a few tears to roll down my cheek.  The power of a lost dream.  A lost innocence.  A lost continued thread in my life.  

In the ensuing years since my divorce, I would have immediately turned away from that song, but lately I have chosen to listen.  To experience the sadness and the loss.  But to also experience many wonderful memories of a time before.  It's me and I no longer chose to cut out a piece of me, just keep it in its place with the right perspective.