August 2012

   It’s crazy how hearing one song can take you back.

I was driving to the hospital. The radio was on, low volume, barely audible. In a corner of my mind the sound triggered something familiar. I turned it up.

   It was the week before graduation. The weather on the island had been warm and beautiful all spring. Exams were over and the looming future of the rest of our lives was hanging in the distance. We could feel the pull but we weren’t ready to give up our high school youth just yet.

   My two best friends, Karen & Keliegh and I decided to take a road trip to our favorite beach. It was a few hours away, tucked between the winding road up the highlands of our beautiful island. We were laughing and gossiping, listening to music.

“Wait! Wait! Turn this up! I love this song!”

   We danced in our seats, windows down, hair flying every which way, music blaring. We fell into giggle-fits of hysteria loving each other’s company while at the same time pushing down the knot in our stomachs that we didn’t dare to talk about.         At the end of summer, we would be walking separate ways. Karen was heading west  where she would rise up the ranks with an engineering company and marry her best friend who she realized she loved after he finally got up the nerve to kiss her after four years. Kel is 31 and single for the first time . She became an independent woman with a thriving Public Relations firm . She's been celebrating her successes by traveling.  Year after year passes and our best-friends-forever promises made back then still tie us together.
   I would go to university with life plans to become a journalist. I thought I knew everything there was to know about my illness and learned to cope and control it for the most part. During the next ten years my life  it would twist, turn and battle me in so many ways. Somehow I ended up here. Mother of an incredible boy. Working on my first novel. Rich in ways beyond my wildest dreams. 

  Who would have known back then that for the rest of our lives when we heard those songs they would take us back. Back to high school dances. Back to driving down our town’s only main road a million times.  Back to road trips to the city. Back to beach parties. Back to first kisses. Back to first dances. Back to first break-ups. Who would have known back then that these songs would become the soundtrack of our younger selves.We had no idea we were on the edge of all the experiences that would make up who we are and how we love.  What we do and who we’re meant to be. 

   Forever when we hear those songs it taps us in to that part of us who wishes that we could go back. Even if it’s only for one song.