The Song Remembers When

Do you ever have those songs that just take you back to some memory? Even if the song wasn't a part of the memory at first? Or do you have those songs that just seem to capture your feelings at the time so perfectly it's like they took the song from your own heart?

I remember I was driving home from class almost two years ago and a song came on the radio ("Strawberry Wine" by Deana Carter) and I couldn't breathe. It was like the song had reached down inside me and pulled out, something. The bittersweet that it pulled up. And the lines: Is it really him or the loss of my innocence I've been missing so much. Well, they just shouldn't play songs like that when I'm driving on the freeway.

But maybe I needed that song. Maybe I needed it to reach down and pull out whatever it was it did so I could face it, and then cast it away. Because when I heard it on the radio the other day, I remember it having that effect on me once, but the feelings it pulled up then aren't there any more. And I definitely don't miss him any more (and that's a whole other story too).

The song right after "Strawberry Wine" the other day was another one of those ones that grabs things down deep inside me, or at least it was one of those. "Don't Make Me" by Blake Shelton. The chorus on that one used to really get me: Baby I love you, Don't wanna lose you, Don't make me let you go. Took such a long time, For me to find you, Don't make me let you go. Yet as I started to sing along with it this time, I was fine. I think in the past it was because it had seemed like it had taken such a long time to find someone I wanted and I was so afraid they wouldn't want me. But that doesn't worry me any more. There was a time when I felt I could definitely relate to this song, when it was singing the fears and worries of my heart. But it isn't any more.

So maybe "The Song Remembers When" (by Trisha Yearwood), but I don't have to carry those memories with me any more.