Music
So, maybe two or so years ago, my hard drive crashed. It wasn't the hugest loss ever -- I kept my files backed up on my external. But I never *quite* got around to transferring my music from the external to my computer.
My current Itunes list is very much a reflection of my post-France tastes. For the most part, the music is "normal," or at its weirdest, folk-y, with some dance music just 'cause. Sufjan Stevens, the Beatles, the Juno soundtrack, some Britney Spears. Belle and Sebastian, Carla Bruni, Coldplay, The Lonely Island. Nothing too out there.
So looking at the music on my external is like stepping through a portal into the past.
I've always had issues with nostalgia, experienced as a highly painful emotion and making it difficult to clean my room, organize old stuff, and especially impossible to get rid of anything. For the most part, I thought I was over it. I've finally come to terms with the fact that keeping stuff does not allow me to hold on to the past, and have begun culling some of the junk. It's just stressful to have around, anyway. Gotta live in the present.
But what about cyber-junk? Seeing my Ayumi Hamazaki, Emocapella, MC Hawking and random Russian bands is just pulling the guts out of me. Some of it, like the Russian stuff, I will never listen to again. Some of it, like the Ayumi Hamazaki, isn't in complete album form, which gets my OCD going. I could just delete it all and probably never miss it. But then I couldn't take this painful walk down memory lane ...
Memory does give everything a shinier gloss, doesn't it? Still, I loved much of my freshman year of college. Sophomore year wasn't bad either. Junior year was okay, but also kind of horrible ... France saved it. But senior year? Senior year was good, don't get me wrong. But I just wasn't in as good a place as I was freshman and sophomore. I will always feel I wasted my junior and senior years to some degree. I was still "getting over" the loss of my best friend, which had estranged me from so many other friends. The people who had kept me connected had graduated. I never found the strength to truly reach out.
I have to remember that there were some real blessings to the loss of my quirkier set of friends. Even though my days of getting other people into anime, throwing DnD parties, and geeking out over Oreos are over with those people, I learned that dorkdom is not my only facet. I became more 3-D when I was forced away from the people I felt most comfortable with. I learned to watch TV, to play Guitar Hero, to cook something other than stir fry for friends, to enjoy a party, and to know when to leave. I also learned how to balance a boyfriend with friends, and with school (to varying degrees of success). I did have a good time, and I have some good memories, even if they aren't with the people I began college with, and even if they lack the dorkdom I might wish for.
Maybe in grad school, I'll find a dorky group. Or maybe I've just moved beyond those labels. This seems more likely. I no longer wish to be labeled a nerd, or anything else.
That old music makes me long for a person I was, the friends I had and the lives we led. But change isn't bad, I have to remind myself.
The old me was terribly earnest, internally rather serious, despite her giggles. I am learning to take things less seriously, to have fun with life. (Aaron has helped me with that, a bit. Helped me laugh at art, which I took so seriously. Now I almost see too many jokes.)
Okay. I have reasoned my way through the panic. Now to peruse that old music ...
My current Itunes list is very much a reflection of my post-France tastes. For the most part, the music is "normal," or at its weirdest, folk-y, with some dance music just 'cause. Sufjan Stevens, the Beatles, the Juno soundtrack, some Britney Spears. Belle and Sebastian, Carla Bruni, Coldplay, The Lonely Island. Nothing too out there.
So looking at the music on my external is like stepping through a portal into the past.
I've always had issues with nostalgia, experienced as a highly painful emotion and making it difficult to clean my room, organize old stuff, and especially impossible to get rid of anything. For the most part, I thought I was over it. I've finally come to terms with the fact that keeping stuff does not allow me to hold on to the past, and have begun culling some of the junk. It's just stressful to have around, anyway. Gotta live in the present.
But what about cyber-junk? Seeing my Ayumi Hamazaki, Emocapella, MC Hawking and random Russian bands is just pulling the guts out of me. Some of it, like the Russian stuff, I will never listen to again. Some of it, like the Ayumi Hamazaki, isn't in complete album form, which gets my OCD going. I could just delete it all and probably never miss it. But then I couldn't take this painful walk down memory lane ...
Memory does give everything a shinier gloss, doesn't it? Still, I loved much of my freshman year of college. Sophomore year wasn't bad either. Junior year was okay, but also kind of horrible ... France saved it. But senior year? Senior year was good, don't get me wrong. But I just wasn't in as good a place as I was freshman and sophomore. I will always feel I wasted my junior and senior years to some degree. I was still "getting over" the loss of my best friend, which had estranged me from so many other friends. The people who had kept me connected had graduated. I never found the strength to truly reach out.
I have to remember that there were some real blessings to the loss of my quirkier set of friends. Even though my days of getting other people into anime, throwing DnD parties, and geeking out over Oreos are over with those people, I learned that dorkdom is not my only facet. I became more 3-D when I was forced away from the people I felt most comfortable with. I learned to watch TV, to play Guitar Hero, to cook something other than stir fry for friends, to enjoy a party, and to know when to leave. I also learned how to balance a boyfriend with friends, and with school (to varying degrees of success). I did have a good time, and I have some good memories, even if they aren't with the people I began college with, and even if they lack the dorkdom I might wish for.
Maybe in grad school, I'll find a dorky group. Or maybe I've just moved beyond those labels. This seems more likely. I no longer wish to be labeled a nerd, or anything else.
That old music makes me long for a person I was, the friends I had and the lives we led. But change isn't bad, I have to remind myself.
The old me was terribly earnest, internally rather serious, despite her giggles. I am learning to take things less seriously, to have fun with life. (Aaron has helped me with that, a bit. Helped me laugh at art, which I took so seriously. Now I almost see too many jokes.)
Okay. I have reasoned my way through the panic. Now to peruse that old music ...