Throughout my life I’ve been surrounded by music of all kinds. When I was 16 I "inherited" my ex’s 500 album collection (those are those circular vinyl black things you used to play on a record player). I remember the first 2 albums I bought myself when I was 13, Led Zeppelin’s "Houses of the Holy" and Starz "Violation". I wore a groove into those records, lol.I can even remember the first 45’s I borrowed from my Mom and played on my Mickey Mouse record player when I was 5 or so. Otis Redding’s "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" was my favorite. Songs can trigger memories and emotions I thought long buried and make me feel just like it was yesterday.
Earlier this week I went shopping at the local Flea Market with my ex Ed and he picked up some used cassette tapes for a buck apiece. We’ve been getting along pretty good lately since I’ve learned he never means what he says when he’s pissed off and it’s best just to ignore it. We brought the tapes home and he played them to make sure they worked.
I was expecting some old country music or classic rock, but I never expected him to find a copy of "The Best of Bread" by (of course) the group Bread. That tape had particular significance to both of us, because it was one of the tapes we played endlessly when we first got together 25 years ago. Talk about bringing up the past.
As I listened to it, all those feeling I had for him in my late teens/early twenties came flooding back like a tsunami. Suddenly I started crying as I remembered how MUCH I loved him back then, loved him with my whole being, body and soul and it made me so sad.
The songs were all written by David Gates, "Make it With You", "Everything I Own", "Diary", "Baby I’m-A Want You", "It Don’t Matter to Me", and "If". We usually only listened to side A, the best of all their ballads, and we both can still recite them all word for word, even though he doesn’t have much of a singing voice, lol.
I got up from where I was sitting and hugged him as tight as I could and I cried, whispering in his ear "I used to love you sooo much". He hugged me back, and I guess through my tears he didn’t hear me right because he said "I love you too". We listened to the whole first side and I cried a little at every song.
It was especially poignant to me, because I used to play the tape and cry my heart out when we were broken up. I remembered our breakups felt like a little death to me back then, and how much I mourned that loss. I was so young and so was he and we both made many mistakes I could never forget, but I still loved him with all my heart.
That was 25 years ago and even though we are both different people now, we can still clearly remember those first years together, good times and bad. I really surprised myself how quickly that music brought tears to my eyes and an ache in my heart. All those hopes and dreams of youth. Never in a million years did I think our lives would turn out like this.
But I have no regrets . . .
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