The Throwback Thursday Playlist

I put on Spotify's "Throwback Thursday" playlist this evening and was hit with a surprising wave of nostalgia. I forget how powerful music is; its instant ability to take you back and bring back old emotions, memories, states of mind. I feel too young to be nostalgic about music from 10 years ago, but there it is: I am.

Music from 10 years ago brings me back to hot, sweaty afternoons in the gym as a gymnast. Waking up at 6 for 8 am practice during the summer: 8-1, 5 days a week, all summer. Running miles in the heat for conditioning. The ankle sprains. Being so sore I could hardly climb steps or get out of bed the next day. Roller skate days on Friday. Overcoming fear: learning to backhandspring on the balance beam. To do a roundoff backhandspring back layout with a full twist. Fighting tears over how hard doing 200 pushups was. Listening to Over my Head by the Fray and Kelly Clarkson on the radio. Eating Campbell's microwaveable soup in the front office before gym practice after middle school. Having to make up an entire semester's worth of Biology in 2 weeks my first year of homeschooling because I procrastinated.

Music from 6 years ago brings me back to my high school/community college days. Fresh faced and 15: taking on Valencia community college, now Valencia college, for the first time. Being so nervous my first day. Treating myself to a chocolate chip cookie once a week between class; finishing homework in the library. My distaste for college algebra. Laying in my bed at night as a teenager; daydreaming, looking at my glow in the dark stars. Playing my favourite songs Penelope by Saosin and Syndicate by The Fray before I fell asleep, thinking of all of my hopes and dreams. Counting the years until 18 because my angsty self didn't want to live at home anymore. Spending Saturday afternoons or off-school days researching graduate schools for physical therapy, trying to plan a future that seemed so far away even my imagination couldn't decide what it looked like. I was a kid who hadn't even applied to real college yet. Whose parents still drove her to school. Still hoping for my first boyfriend. Writing in my journal every day, in my impeccable handwriting that has only worsened over time. Pants too big because I didn't eat enough.

This was all pre-diabetes, when I was free to eat what I wanted. Pre insulin shots, pre callused fingertips. There's post-Diabetes too, but I've got a lot of blogs on that.

I remember the day I left home for the last time as someone who lived there. 17 years old. My old white Ford truck was packed to the brim for college with all of my wordly belongings. I remember the brown dress I wore. And I had far too many clothes and T-shirts. I remember my excitement about the road ahead; and surprisingly, almost a lack of understanding over how monumental this event was in my life. I'd never live at home in that little blue house in Apopka, Florida again. Never more see the glow in the dark stars light my ceiling before I closed my eyes. Sleep in my little silver day bed I'd had since 4th grade with my canopy pulled close around me. No more girl: I was growing closer and closer to a woman, the one I wanted to be.

Two years ago? That takes me back to a time that I am now celebrating the anniversary of: It's two years since I've moved to Atlanta. And how life has changed! The song of that August was "Rather Be", and "Cardiac Arrest" by Bad Suns. I remember packing all of my belongings in my stuffy, too-big and too-empty apartment in Macon... thinking about the dreams I had dreamed as a girl at 15 and how I felt like so many of them were broken, expired. Left to dry out. Now, I was packing up the remnant of those dreams in cardboard boxes, waiting for my move to Atlanta like a swimmer longs for a breath of fresh air as he swims to the surface from the deep. I didn't know what I was in for with PT school, or with life.
Young me learned so much those first few months. I discovered my favourite coffee shops, my favourite Kroger, and my favourite spot: a secluded spot in the middle of Glenwood in East Atlanta. I discovered the joy of a glass of wine at night as I turned old enough to drink. Fighting traffic to get to school in the mornings... and the hour long commute to get home. I discovered swing dancing: at first, it was just to impress a guy, but I watched it become so much more through the coming months.

These are parts of my life that are settling; they have cemented themselves into my memory, like bricks on the bottom row of a wall that lay the foundation for something bigger to be laid on top. I'm still young, but I've grown. These 22 years of mine, I feel that they have lived a lot of life in them. I've experienced my share of sadness, of heartbreak, of disappointment. Of joy. They've experienced a lot of forced responsibility. Of struggling to learn how to make it on my own; on struggling with a chronic illness; of struggling with loneliness, and the burden of mistakes I've made. I've seen myself come through dark times and come through them stronger. I forget I have a lot of these memories sometimes, but they are buried in me, deep inside - sometimes, evidently, they only need some songs from 10 years back to awaken them. And I'm glad I have them. I'm glad for where I came from, even if it saddens me sometimes. There's so much joy in where I came from, too. More than enough to balance it all out.