"Memory Lane"

Another song that hits my break point in an awkward place. And sure, I could sing these songs in any key I please, but part of the fun, the first time through, is playing and singing together. My piano playing isn't quite up to transposing and sightreading simultaneously.

Ah, memories. I've written in a journal off and on since I was 15, which is to say, quite a while. I haven't written daily the whole time, often just when I felt the urge. And for some crazy reason, I had the urge to read through all those old journals, in order. Eventually, theoretically, I would make it up to the present day. And then I could read just my most recent journals as I finish them, get a snap shot of the recent life of me.

People have often said to me, "How lucky you are to have kept a journal all these years!" Maybe. There are precious tidbits in there, things I treasure having down on paper. But alas, they are surrounded with a oh so much proof of what an idiot I was for oh so many years. At the moment--and I've given myself a little breather the last couple of weeks--I'm up to my late college days. So painful. So striving. So oblivious to all common sense. And since I remember how the story goes, for the most part, I know that I don't get a whole lot of sense any time in the ensuing decade. Ugh.

One of my best, and oldest, friends thinks that I should just burn all my journals. My husband has no idea why I would put myself through this, if it's so painful. But I still want to do it, maybe just this once. It's clear that I can never let my daughter read these, while I am alive; and maybe eventually I will burn them, but just this once, I'm going to read through all the pain, all the stupidity, and try to have some compassion for that much younger me. I think I've turned out better than I would have thought, if I only had these journals to rely on for the evaluation.

Thankfully, I also know that these journals capture only a part of what my life was then. Nothing could ever capture it all, now, or then. And occassionally I do read something, remember something, and ah: the memories can also be sweet.