blasts from the past

Don't we all have those? I just had one. I don't know why I torture myself. It's that one song that transports me. It's so clear, so quick. I can almost see the funnel I'm spiraling through; spinning, colors blending, blurring together. It's visceral and I find myself gasping for breath as quietly as I can, in the hopes that nobody hears and interrupts my moment. Mambo Sun by TRex. I suppose the song itself doesn't matter. We each have our own. And I don't even think it's the song itself, although it has a certain, shall we say...F Me...feeling to it...

It's the thought behind it. That there was a someone who had enough passion for me, enough feeling, to sit down, find the song on a cassette (I'm old, I admit it), re-record it onto a new cassette, write me a letter professing undying love and put it in the mailbox. The promise, the shiny newness of young romantic love and lust.

Here I sit, at my computer, beer next to me, kids in bed. Not the same person that sent the cassette living in my house with me. That fire died out as quickly as it started. Just one day, *poof* he was gone, never to be heard from in a positive way again. I love the person with me. But there was never that got-to-have-you-or-die feeling from him. His is a slow, steady, pragmatic love, born of length, mutuality and, well, there's a certain soulmatish feel to it. It's better in the long run I think and I'm happier all in all. I wouldn't trade my life for another.

But sometimes the excitement of Mambo Sun transports me to a stinky little flat where we were all poor college kids finding our ways in the world. Those ways just didn't traverse together...