unexpected nostalgia

I put that time away, left that place in a box that was sealed up with layers and layers of clear packing tape and hidden away in the back of a closet somewhere I wouldn't have to look at it.

Somehow time has weakened the seal and the tape has started to peel away at the edges, allowing the parts I'd forgotten to peak out at me and wink. The good parts. I'd forgotten there were good parts. People I'd enjoyed the company of, pubs that felt like home, that other open mike that I went to religiously for years and years... back in that city I vowed to never set foot in again.

It was that city where this all started. The place where suddenly music wasn't just what I listened to on the radio or my CD player. The very spot where I earned my first "music industry" dollars "managing" my first band that broke my heart by breaking up. The place where Kat and I flyered hundreds of cars for gigs, all the while speaking in inexplicable English accents to passers by - killing ourselves laughing at our own ridiculousness. The home of margarita Mondays with my own private entertainment...and pizza in barrels on Sunday afternoons.

I have so many fond memories of that place... memories that I had pushed aside and completely ignored because they had become overshadowed by what happened later. Overshadowed by the "why I left". It was almost as though I had squeezed my eyes shut and put my fingers in my ears... "lalalalala".... nothing good there, nothing to miss, nothing to remember. But I think there was, there is... and I do. Surprise.

Why these thoughts have managed to push their way back in at this point in time is a mystery to me. And I don't know what it means. But somehow I am craving that pint of Beck's and really want to hear Molly Malone.

Huh. Who knew?