The weird thing is, not only do the words and melodies stick in my head, but the situation and emotions imbed themselves as well. So after a while, whenever I hear a song, I remember where I was and what I was doing when I was either obsessed with it or when I was hearing it everywhere I go. Which then prompts me to comment to people nearby, "This song totally reminds me of..." Which I'm sure is quite annoying. Cause who really cares other than me, right? But the thing is that I get so caught up in these memories and the emotions that go with them, that I can't seem to keep it to myself.
The other day, I was teaching Pilates to a few women. The radio station that played in the background was apparently playing a lot of songs from the year I turned 13, because every song put me back at a Bar/Bat Mitzvah party. Every freaking one! Dancing in my socks (which I naturally wore over my panty hose to keep them from tearing), watching the boys on the other side of the room (far, far away from us of course) whisper and play with matches and wishing they would come over and ask me to dance, seeing relatives rallying around the Jew-of-the-day, congratulating them on not dropping the Torah. All that. And I kept those memories in as long as possible, but I just couldn't help myself. I blurted out, "It feels like a Bat Mitzvah in here! Anyone have a glowstick I can make into a halo?" To which the nice waspy southern ladies who I was working out at the time responded, understandably, "What?" "Nothing, don't worry about it. Pull your abs in."
Yesterday, I was playing around on the XM and tuned to the 80's channel. They were playing Phil Collins, "Inside Out." As a angst-ridden high schooler, I played that song A LOT! And there is a line in the song that says "Let me in, I'm through with wasting my time!" which I recall screaming at the top of my lungs as I sang along. (Go ahead, you can lose respect for me for singing along with some Philage. I understand.) As soon as I heard that song the other day, I found myself mentally slipping back into that angsty place... that feeling of being misunderstood, angry, confused and hormonal. For a minute, some part of me was sitting on the floor in my childhood bedroom, cranking the music and singing as loud as my lungs would permit. And even though I changed the channel quickly to avoid it, I sank into that mood for a good half hour and had a hard time returning to the good mood I had been previously walking around with.
This happens to me all day long, wherever there is music playing. I have such specific memories attached to so many songs that sometimes it feels like dodging landmines. 'Crap, that's a Ryan song.' 'Oh man, I heard this song so much when I was working for Leeza.' 'Wow, Paul loved this song. I wonder what happened to him.' 'Oh god, I heard this song one night driving home after a crappy day of working on Wayne .'
Some songs are forever taboo. There's the Rolling Stones song that reminds me of the night my first boyfriend dumped me. The one that reminds me of being fired from that Disney show. Another one that reminds me of a really angsty night in college. These are songs I know I need to avoid like the plague because it takes me a really looooooong time to pull myself out of the moods I know come with them.
Some songs are great memories. From a fun family vacation or a great night in college with my friends. Songs from shows I really enjoyed, or songs that we played while we worked (Can you say Whitesnake, Paige?) or songs we danced to in the nightclubs in London.
Sometimes I try to recondition my brain to connect a different memory to a song. Doesn't seem to work very well. Only accidentally. My mother loves Barry Manilow, so his music used to remind me of being a little girl and make me feel warm and safe. But I used it so many times to pull myself out of bad moods while I was working in Salt Lake, that now it just reminds me of being miserable in Salt Lake.
Because of all this, I think I have a stronger connection to my past then I should. I know I spend too much time thinking about it. It's hard to stop. Memories are just everywhere, and they are so strong. I don't know how to avoid them. And the thing is, I don't always mind. In fact, a lot of times, I like it. When they are good memories, I'm excited to relive them. When I heard "Roam" by the B-52s today, it reminded me of taking a tour of Ithaca's campus for the first time, and how excited I was about how close college seemed, how soon I was going to get out of Shaker. And as I remembered that feeling, my life felt so open and full of possibilities.
Sometimes even the bad memories are good to remember. There is another Phil Collins song that reminded me of being 17 and saying goodbye to my best friend who was moving to New York. I hear that song and think about how sure I was that I would never see her again and it makes me so happy that we stayed close and have kept our friendship going another 20 years. Makes me feel accomplished.
I may sound like I'm complaining here, and I may be to a degree. But really, if you gave me the option to change this, I wouldn't. Some part of me likes the connections. Even the bad ones.
What I do wish I could change tho, is the feeling of being so out of control of my reactions. I would like to be able to have these moments of my life on playback but I would like to watch them from a safe emotional distance. Maybe if I didn't constantly emotionally relive my past, I could let it go and focus more on what's going on in my life right now.
Once again, I am solution-less on this issue. I shall continue to live in my mental auditorially-stimulated time-machine.
Maybe I should just find a channel on XM that only plays songs I've never heard before. Think it would work?
