क्या हुआ??

I think I made a post along these same lines a while ago, but the same feelings keep hitting me. I’ve been getting really into artists like The Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan and Toto. Anyone who has any sense of popular American music will probably tell I’m a total loser, since this is the kind of stuff you hear in a waiting room or a Walgreens. Anyway, I don’t care, I like it! However, this is also the music that I remember my parents listening to when I was a little kid. 

Whenever I listen to this Doobie Brothers album I have this weird sensory flashback to those days. Specifically, it makes me think of sunny Saturdays. My mom would be vacuuming and I might be dusting or laying in a sunbeam with my dog…but this is the kind of music that would be the soundtrack. It’s a very strange feeling, really. Sometimes it’s actually a little difficult for me. Things have changed so completely since then, that it’s hard for me to feel like this person I am today was once that little girl in the sunbeam. 

I wonder if I would tell her everything. Would I let her know that the fights that her parents had back then were not actually just part of a normal marriage, but that they would one day escalate to such huge proportions that even she could not escape them. Would I tell her about all the things she would go through in middle school, would I warn her about getting her heart broken in high school? What would I tell her? 

Maybe I would just tell her not to worry. That things will be rocky and unpleasant a lot of the time, but she’ll make it and she’ll be stronger for it. And I think that’s true. I have made it through. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been put through something akin to an emotional navy seal boot camp. Sometimes it’s felt like torture, and sometimes I felt like didn’t have the strength…but I guess I did! I’m still here! I didn’t just survive either, I’ve actually improved my situation and I feel like I’m really on the way to something great. 

Still, I think back to those days. With all the strength and characterr building and all the benefits I have taken from my struggles, I still have moments. Sometimes I want to go back to that sunbeam with the knowledge that both my parents are there and ignorant of any sort of conflict. But anyway, I guess it’ll just have to be Steely Dan for now.