Memories - Cats

I used to play the song Memories from the musical Cats on my trumpet in the stairwells in when I was college.   It was so powerful to me, and it kept me going.

I was so young then, but I still found a lot of power in a song all about memories of a better time.  I hadn't had much time yet, and undergrad was a really good time for me, so why was a song about good times in the past so moving to me?

Well, I think there's a number of reasons.  First, we're all human, we all live in a time-space that is linear in time, meaning that all we have experienced happens to be in the past and everything in the future is uncertain.  Any time any of us is looking to reminisce on good times, we'll look in the past.  That's pretty much given.  It's pretty hard to reminisce on good times yet to come, simply because they haven't happened yet.

Second, I had a lot of good times already by the time I was an undergrad.  If you look at life from the perspective of, "I've got a limited time and I'm going to cram as much happiness and hurt and elation into every possible moment," then I definitely had that going for me.  It was easy to find past moments to look back on as times when I was truly happy, because I had so many of them.  That's not to discount all the very painful moments, of which I also had many, but perhaps especially in painful moments I found it comforting to go sit in that stairwell and play a song dedicated to past happy times.

Finally, I was hurting pretty bad when I would play that song.  It was my go-to when I was really having trouble keeping it together, and I remember I'd play, then I'd cry, then I'd play, then I'd write in my journal, then I'd cry, then I'd play some more.  I went to that song when I was really in a low place, and I used it to keep myself somewhat sane in some really trying times.  I don't know if anyone knew where I was emotionally back then, because I used that song to let it all out, then tried so hard to remain normal most of the rest of the time so that I wouldn't have to really deal with a lot of the things going on back then in a public way.  Music has that ability for many of us.  It can be a sponge at times and just soak up all the things we don't really want to let out otherwise.

Anyway, I think I'll post this, despite it being deeply personal, in the hopes that someone will relate and maybe comment in a way that will be helpful to someone else who is still finding that stairwell and playing Memories on their trumpet, all alone.