2002

Repressed memories. Buried emotions. Shunned moments. Heartaches. It was "Just Like a Pill" and "Don’t Let Me Get Me". It was "If You're Not the One" and "Dilemma". "Complicated", "I Can Make it Through the Rain", and "In the End". That was my 2002 in a nutshell. 

Anne-Marie’s single is the only song I listened to in the car for the past 2 weeks (lol!) and it had me racking my brain for specific memories I have of that year. It seemed like I sleep-walked the entire time. My friends helped a bit but it wasn’t until I Googled the popular songs that I got a real sense of how I lived through its highlights and complications.

Isn’t it amazing how songs could open the floodgates to your mind and your heart? Now I sit thinking of certain songs and I find myself remembering things I thought I have forgotten. I remember going on my first road trip to DC with a few friends while listening (on repeat) to Jars of Clay’s Something Beautiful and the other songs on their Eleventh Hour album. Or singing Beyonce’s Halo ad nauseum while working at an outpatient clinic in Hempstead which I absolutely hated.

Certain chapters of my life, especially the most beautiful or the most horrible, have certain soundtracks associated with them. People too. I would hear Radiohead’s Creep and Depeche Mode’s Somebody and I would remember how I used to be head-over-heels infatuated with a guy I used to know. Or cringe at Steven Curtis Chapman’s I Will Be Here because it reminds me of someone I’d rather forget. Or cry upon hearing the notes of Kelly Clarkson's Because of You, which reminds me of how my heart broke one summer a lifetime ago.

Mitch Albom wrote in his book The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto that “All humans are musical. Why else would the Lord give you a beating heart?” And it makes sense. Whether you love to sing or not, our hearts, minds, and souls resonate with a musical beat. Songs have a way of seeping through our consciousness in ways that other sounds don’t and can’t. Some songs are just that, songs. But a few are like mile markers that tell you where you are relative to where you’ve been. Others are labels that won’t allow you to forget. And still others are firebrands that spark your passions or act as emotional triggers causing you to remember feelings about things or people your subconscious has buried. 

No it’s never been better than the summer of 2002. (Anne-Marie)