Nostalgia, music and high school
May 25, 2017
High school is kind of like one of those songs that comes on and when it does, you pause and go “this is such a good song,” not because it’s your favorite or even because it makes you think of a time that was good, although it can, but it takes you back to a certain season in your life where maybe you felt way too deeply, life royally screwed you over or you felt genuinely happy. The point is, when one of “those songs” comes on and you look back on it, the time in your life where that song seemed relevant, whether that time sucked or was euphoric, is over. You can sing the lyrics and for some reason, you feel like you learned something, because you did. This is high school for me.
Talking about high school past tense has such a weird ring to it. Graduation is one of those important milestones people pump you up for your whole life, but honestly, it’s so weird to live through it. Weird because it seemed like this day would never come, when I got to sit back and reflect on all four years, when I’d finally be an outsider (almost) looking in. I mentioned that now, looking back, high school is like a song, or rather many songs, that hold a lot of meaning to me. I say this because although high school wasn’t a walk in the park for me, it also wasn’t only struggles. The moments in which I felt destroyed, whether it be by life circumstances, overbearing school work or just being an angsty, emotional teen still trying to figure my way through life, are the moments in which I gained a sense of who I was. Maybe not right away, but eventually, after I was able to persevere through it all, I look back and I know who I am because of the moments in which I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. Basically, those foundational moments are the songs that take me back to a time that was hard to go through, but needed to happen. I can listen to the notes of that song and for a moment I hang on every note as if I’m transported back in time, feeling emotions intensely and unapologetically. But as the last few chords finish up, I arrive back in my present being and state of mind, and I can wholeheartedly appreciate the times in high school that broke me down and in turn, caused me to rediscover who I was.
I can’t talk about my high school experience and do it justice by only talking about the sucky times. In truth, probably my all-time favorite songs are the ones that take me back to times in which everything in the universe felt like it aligned just for me. They’re the songs you listen to while driving around on warm summer nights with friends, the one song you’ve waited an entire three sets to hear at a concert, they’re palisades trips with the friend group, uncontrollable laugh sessions with your mom; they’re songs that make you instantly smile and sway back and forth and you get a little taste of that euphoria again. These are the moments that make it all worthwhile.
