My Own Personal Time Travel Revelations

My sciatica is acting up horribly tonight and sleep is just not an option.  I'm just laying in bed and listening to music.  Music is that beast that brings back memories more than any smell or sight or other sounds ever could.  It tends to bring back every emotion or memory of what I was doing when I first heard it or it was one of the songs that was constantly looping through my speakers.  When a certain song plays, I'm taken directly back to that place or that person, the smells and the touches of what happened during that time.  I know, I'm a freakshow but music has always done that to me.  There are songs I refuse to listen to because I just don't want to remember those times.  It's my own personal time machine.

Anyway, I'm sitting here on my bed, twisted in my blankets from trying to find a spot that keeps my leg from aching to the point that I want to cut it off.  At first I just layed here with the volume low and random songs playing in my ears to try to help me drift off.  I eventually found that I was singing along and thinking and turning the volume up while my aching toes kept a steady rhythem with the memories that came flooding back in.  It seems that all of my relationships - work, family, friends and otherwise -  are incredibly intense but incredibly quiet.  Fierce but silent.  I'm having a really hard time explaining this and it's mostly because I keep the intensity to myself.  It's not something that was every spoken or put into words but could be felt in the room; seen and experienced and felt but never spoken.  I don't think I really realize the intensity until I look back at the situation, and I usually don't look that deeply back until the memory is triggered and this is usually through music.

Sometimes music says all the things that we can't and the music we choose to listen to in each other's presence somehow subconsciously says all those things for us.  Mostly it's for our own amusement of course but next time you're with someone you care about, pay attention to the songs you feel like listening to as I am sure you'll be surprised what your choices are. I have one song that insanely reminds of the last time I spoke to someone ... yeah, I was "counting bodies like sheep to the rhythem of the war drums" that afternoon and from the slam of that car door, you'd think I really was.  Other times I was the "queen of pain" to the "king of cowards" but "saw forever in my never" only to come to the conclusion that "we could've had it all, rolling in the deep". 

I turn it up, I get lost in it, I find the intensity that I once had for the situation I was in and the feelings I had for
whomever I was with.  Lady GaGa always makes me smile, I just close my eyes and dance with my babies again, all the laughter and love that was in the moment of dancing to her with those three "little monsters" comes rushing back.  Great Big Sea's "Chemical Worker's Song" brings me back to giving my Dad a hug when I was kid and still smelling the coal mine off of his neck.  That smell was there no matter how much he washed and I can always feel his strength and smell him again when I close my eyes and hear that drum.  And there are so many others that bring these intense feelings and memories back, countless to be honest.

Science says that our sense of smell is our strongest memory trigger but I call bullshit on that.  Our strongest memory trigger (mine anyway) is listening to someone else sing everything you want to say but are too scared to say it; find the words for you to help pull that fondness and warmth to the forefront of our mind; allow us to close our eyes and relive some of our greatest or saddest moments.  A song can create a mood where just eye contact with someone you've been wanting can say everything you want to say, whether it's your devotion, passion and/or energy, enthusiasm.  I've been told once to "stop looking at me like you love me".  Hahaha, I just remembered that and you know what?  I'm listening to Billy Talent.  My lovely readers may not get that reference but that's okay, I do and I'm sure the gist is there.

But, it's 5:37am and I'm rambling like an overtired fool.  I think I'm going to take my Blackberry  and limp down on the front step to finish watching the sunrise with some tunes blaring in my ears.  I think it's time to make another memory, one of enthusiasm for the things to come and the experiences to be had.  (I'm such a dork at this hour.)

Loose Ends

Over the last few days I went back to places and spoke to people that I swore I would never speak to again in my lifetime.  People that I parted ways with on bad terms, midst an argument or feelings of hurt with no closure and no resolution.  I never realized how good it would feel to run into two of those people, talk, forgive and move on.  It's nice to move on without holding those feelings of resentment and anger.  The animousity we carry for people who have wronged us or that we feel have wronged us really can eat away at our soul.

While out for a walk downtown, I doot-dee-doo'd my way up Spring Garden (commonly known as Skin Garden Rd due to the amount of nearly nude people there in the summer) and when I looked up from switching the song that was blaring in my ear, there he was.  OOoooh, all I wanted to do was gaffle his short self and toss him out into traffic then take his wallet to get back the money he owes me.  I wanted to freak and scream about how much his words had hurt people that I love and his actions caused a lot of  upheaval in my life.  Like a movie flash, I could see myself hurting him and I wanted desperately to make him cry.

The Buddhist in me came to my rescue.  Meditation sessions and self-control (possibly medication) saved me from my impulse to draw blood.  I thought it better to let bygones be bygones and suddenly realized that the past deserves to stay exactly where it's at.  I walked up to that stumpy bastard and hugged him, apologized for the way things ended and was met with seemed to be a sincere apology back.  It was a good chat and I walked away knowing that even though the friendship was over, it ended respectfully this time.  I made peace with the situation and feel very at peace.  The demons of that situation are finally at rest.

Two days later while attempting bonnach bread, which turned out horrible, my MSN starts flashing.  Lo and behold there is the asshat to trump all asshats, King Arsehole himself.  Someone I had hoped was long forgotten along with the heartache, the broken and empty promises and his selfishness and inconsiderate behaviour.  A childhood heartbreak, my very first one from the first person who told me he loved me and then, seventeen years later, the purveyor of another heartbreak after leading me to believe that love, even immature love of teenagers, can come full circle and turn out wonderful.  No, lies and bullshit and loans that were never repaid and visits to fill my ear with promises and hope while he left to go back to his girlfriend that I had no idea wasn't really an ex.

Another moment of wanted to squeal and scream and type in bold, capital letters.  I deleted him, forgot to block him and there he was, appearing on my screen in his cocky self-assuredness to slime his way back into our "friendship". King Asshat asked to bring me tea and I, like a fool, said yes with every intention of pouring burning hot liquid over his head.  

Damn you Buddhist philosophy for making care about peaceful endings!! Instead of pouring it over his head when he walked in, I sat down with him and we talked.  Talked about everything from the relationship  that followed him (doomed as it was), the relationship he's in now and everything that happened in the meantime.  I was met again with sincere apologies for behaviour and craziness and the heartache that was caused.  I was met with laughter after that and a promise to keep his distance.  I don't have to promise to keep mine, that's a given.  I may have forgiven and forgotten but trust is hard to rebuild and I certainly don't have that fight in me, at least not with him.  Another set of demons laid to rest as he hugged me goodbye, another surprisingly easy ending to what was a tumultous, angst-ridden and seemingly unending (thanks to the moron that followed him) "relationship".

I'm breathing easier.  I didn't realize that these two friendships and how they ended weighed so heavily on my shoulders.  I thought I was over the fights, I thought I had moved on from the foolishness but, the teachings are very true in that forgiveness heals.  Carrying around that burden of anger was destroying a little piece of me that I didn't even realize and now that forgiveness has been given, on all sides, a sense of peace has poured in.  These two will never again be a part of my life again but I do thank them for giving me the opportunity to find the truth behind forgiveness.

I do have to say that it's amazing but I have a lot further to go (ending the violent mental images of things I'd like to do to people who pissed me off would be one thing to start with) and a lot more people to forgive and, more importantly, ask forgiveness from, including the moron.  Buddhism and it's teachings have given me the foundation to find myself, my heart, my strength and my confidence.  I'm a very happy girl now that I finally realize that one small action can make a world of difference.