Last week, I posed a challenge on my blog Facebook page: the first person to comment could give me an idea, and I’d write a post this week about whatever their idea was. I thought this would be a good writing challenge for me, and also a fun way to interact with friends and blog readers.
The first comment was from my best friend since middle school, Katie! Here’s what she suggested I write about:
“Ooohh!!! Things you are nostalgic for. Like…things that you see/hear/smell that take you back.”
This was a fun and challenging one for me, and I’ve been thinking about it all week! Almost all the things I came up with were songs, because music tends to make us nostalgic for some reason, so you’ll see some songs and a couple of other random things too!
Gilmore Girls
My mom and I watched a lot of things together while I was growing up, but I have a lot of distinct memories around Gilmore Girls in particular. I had a tiny TV and DVD player in my bedroom, and we bought all the seasons on DVD since we’d never seen it when it was actually on TV. I don’t remember what got us started on this show, but we LOVED watching it together. We’d go sit up in my bed with snacks and the dog, and binge watch it before binge watching was really a thing. We loved the show so much that we bought totes and shirts, and dreamed about living in Stars Hollow. Now I can’t see any of the actresses without thinking of these long lost days with my mom!
Harry Potter
Who doesn’t have amazing memories involving HP?! My mom and I were always anxiously awaiting the book drops whenever a new one would release, whether it be at Wegmans or Barnes and Noble. We. Were. THERE!
“Rent”
The movie, the musical, the music… all of it is so damn nostalgic for me. I love Rent so much that I had to write a detailed post all about my love affair with it. But when I first hear those opening chords, I am brought back to the movie theater on that day in 2005 when I first saw it with my best friends Taylor, Chris, and some others from school. I remember when it ended, it was like this sense of awe and amazement, and I just started at the screen.
“My Own Worst Enemy” by Lit
Gosh, this one reminds me of my brother, and apparently it was released in 1999?! Every time that guitar lick at the beginning comes on, I think of him. I remember him playing it over and over again on the guitar, just that beginning part. His guitar was always plugged into the amp, so we could hear it all over the house. HA!
“Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver
My dad is a very good self-taught guitar player, and when I was little, I used to sing with him while he played. I like Journey and Boston because of my mom, but I like a lot of other classic music because of my dad, including a lot of country. John Denver’s song was one of my favorites that we’d sing together. I wonder if this is why I’ve always had a dream of moving out to the country? He had a binder with all of his songs, and I remember flipping through them all. I even made little drawings to label some of the bands in his binder, like a horribly drawn bird for the Eagles. I remember singing during the day on Christmas Eve some years too. Here are a few others that I loved to sing with him, and any time I hear these songs, I think of my dad.
- “Hotel California” by the Eagles: they played this one year on American Horror Story, and it brought me straight back in time!
- “Eight Days a Week” by the Beatles
- “Forever and Ever, Amen” by Randy Travis: I still listen to this one and have it on my Amazon music.
Any song by: Simple Plan, Good Charlotte, New Found Glory, Blink 182
Oh lordy, my friends and I just LOVED this music in our middle school days. Anytime I hear a song from any of these artists again, it makes me laugh, smile, and reminisce about those emo pre-teen years. So much angst and tears and laughs and firsts… like the first time my 8th grade boyfriend kissed me in front of the buses, and my best friends Taylor, Katie, and I were jumping and running and bouncing as we walked to my house after school, so excited about the “kiss.” And the time we donned my brother’s clothes, grabbed pans from the kitchen for drums, and made up our own band called Blink 182 and a half. What a bunch of dweebs.
“Crazy Girl” by Eli Young Band
This was mine and Jerry’s wedding song, and every time I hear it, I still get goosebumps and feel all giddy. Anytime it comes on the radio, I text Jerry immediately. It brings me right back to our wedding day, which was by far, one of the best days ever. I remember coming up with a list of tons of wedding song options for us and asking Jerry to listen to them. The instant he heard “Crazy Girl,” he immediately said “this one,” and didn’t even have to hear any others.
“Marry Me” by Train
This is what I’d call our alternate wedding song. Jerry picked this out, unbenownst to me, and had the DJ play it while he dropped rose petals for me. This is for sure the most romantic thing he’s ever done. HA!
“Barefoot Blue Jean Night” by Jake Owen
When Jerry first came to visit me in 2012, I had a mixed CD that I had made of all my current favorite songs (most of them country). We drove all over Rochester that first week he visited, so we were in the car a lot with this CD playing on repeat. For some reason, this song in particular sticks out to me from that CD and that summer. Every time I hear it, I smile and am instantly transported again to that summerwe fell in love.
“Come Back Song” by Darius Rucker
This was another song on my mix CD from the summer of 2012, but I have yet another memory of this one. Shortly before Jerry came to visit, my dad and I went to a Lady Antebellum concert out of town, and it was such a shitshow. The lines to get in were long, parking was a nightmare, it was pouring rain, and because of the lines, we missed a good portion of Darius Rucker’s act, and MAN do I love him. Right as we were walking in, he was singing the line “wouldn’t you know it? Pouring rain,” as he gestured to the sky and the downpour. My dad and I got drenched, and on the way out, I fell into a muddy puddle. I remember getting home and hopping on Skype after so I could talk to Jerry all the way in Cali. It was a shitshow at the time, but now I have fond memories of that rain soaked night.
“Good Feeling” by Flo Rida
When I was learning to run and training for my half marathon, I of course had a playlist full of encouraging tunes. I don’t know why, but this one was my absolute favorite. Every time I heard it, I instantly got excited and picked up the pace. It pumped me up and pushed me to keep going. Right when I was getting ready to cross the finish line at my half, I put this on so I could run through the end with this one in my ears. Whenever I hear this one, it gets me pumped up, happy, sad, and super nostalgic all at once. It brings me back to that time when I was crushing goals and getting fit. It was a great time in my life.
Any song by ABBA
My friends and I were (and are) big fans of musicals, and when Mamma Mia came out in 2008, we became obsessed. Subsequently, we became obsessed with ABBA. We listened to it nonstop, and even played ABBA Singstar incessantly. In 2009-ish, my bestie Chris and I took a roadtrip up to visit our bestie Katie at college. We stayed the night and had the best time ever just goofing off in the dorm room. For some reason, I distinctly remember listening to ABBA with Chris on the way there, and I flash back to this fun little road trip now when I hear them.
“Ironic” by Alanis Morissette
One of the very strange things my friends and I did growing up was to make movies and music videos. We’d spend hours and days coming up with story lines and choreography, then filming ourselves with an old school camcorder, only to watch our videos back again and again and laugh hysterically. “Ironic” was one of our favorites, and we thought it was a masterpiece. This one involved Chris and our best friend Taylor. I remember acting one scene out in the car… in the garage. It was glorious. And pretty much any song we ever did over the years brings me right back in time to the filming of these videos.
- “Come Sail Away” by Styx, and recording that in the tub of Taylor’s house. Her mom is the biggest Styx fan around!
- “I’m Like a Bird” by Nelly Furtado brings me right back to flapping around in Taylor’s room with her and Katie, donning our homemade wings and beaks.
- “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees, when Chris, Taylor and I wore these awful old hats and writhed around the floor while we filmed from above and thought “what a great filming technique this is!”
- “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen was one of our more epic videos that took place outside, in the basement, and all over Taylor’s house.
- “From the Bottom of My Broken Heart” by Britney Spears, and how serious we were trying to be, looking heartbroken on the floor in Taylor’s room, looking up at the camera with sad eyes. We were not so good actors!
…. and many, many others. We made a lot of them, and hearing any of those songs now makes me burst out in laughter and transports me straight back to Taylor’s house where we did almost all of our recording.
And I’m going to stop there! I could go on and on, so I tried to really think of the songs and other things that really brought me back in time, the instant I heard or saw them. Nostalgia is a killer. I feel like it makes you happy for all the memories you’ve had in your life, but also sad for the times that are gone. Mixed emotions, for sure!
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