The Who was playing on the radio while I was driving the other day. I had Ozzy with me and a load of groceries in the car. The song took me back- I mean really took me back. I had this flashback for a minute or a nano-second – some form of time. It wasn’t a flashback of a memory but of a feeling. Have you ever had those? Like you might feel for a split second the way you felt when you were ten and you were at the pool swimming for hours, or when you were at your first rock concert in high school (Bruce Springsteen baby!), or you were sitting next to your boyfriend in the car.

I used to wear rose perfume in high school. ALOT of rose perfume.  If I happen to smell rose perfume now its like a vortex grabs me and tries to take me back to 1979. Ditto for Ralph Lauren Polo(all the guys wore it)- early 80’s in college. I am not sure if I can explain this feeling but if you’ve felt it you know. Music and smells seem to do it to me. Its like some past is trying to crawl out from your brain. For me those feelings are usually good – sometimes they are bad. But I feel like something more wants to pop forward. Maybe a full blown memory pictures and all.

Anyway the Who was blasting out a song (and I can’t even recall which one) and I had that feeling. This time I tried to pull it up from inside but it was gone as fast as it popped up. I tried and tried but nah it was gone. But it left me with something good. A good feeling – a lighter sense of me. There was a comfort in it.

More and more over this crazy winter I have felt something lifting.  I have spent the last year in a funk after my cancer treatments and other events of life. I felt a little pummeled, a little shell shocked. Something was missing.  I was down sometimes and inert others – so many things overwhelmed me. And they still do sometimes if I let them. But I feel lighter lately. I can manage better. Now I feel less like I am just floating under the surface and more like I am above it. The days don’t seem so hard.

I have begun making plans for spring and summer. I am not as worried about committing to things and I feel excited about taking a road trip up north in June. I got an email the other day from the caring committee at church asking if I could make a meal for a family this week. At first I balked- it seemed too much. But I stared at the email and thought about it. How many meals had been delivered to my family when I was sick? I had asked to be on the committee so I could give back. It was time. I replied yes to that email and then the old me was back. Planning a meal and looking forward to helping someone else. And it felt darn good- good to help and good to feel like I could.

When I hear those old songs- I get a little feeling of the girl I was in my past – there is a comfort there somehow. Those are parts of me that make up who I am today. I may not be able to conjure up the full memory but the comfort is still there. Slowly but surely I am getting little pieces of me back. They are the parts of me that make me feel balanced and comfortable with who I am.  There is such a relief in that feeling – kind of like the feeling you get if you suddenly can’t see your child on the playground and for a second you are panicked but then you see him coming down the slide and your get that relief and sense that everything is ok and balanced again. That’s how I feel …every time I find a little piece of myself. It’s like a puzzle coming together- the puzzle just is not complete without all it’s pieces. I might not be quite there but I am getting there one piece at a time.

Thanks for reading–

Lets crank up the Who!