Time Won't Let Me Go

The pleasures of getting to know someone new at the ripe old age of 39 seem almost infinite at the moment, but it won't surprise you to learn that topping the list, for this chick, is all the new music to which I get to be exposed. This song is a fine example, not just because I dig its sound, but because it grapples with being at a point in one's life where looking back and having the urge to rewrite history is really tempting. I think it's impossible not to confront this when one has been married for a chunk of time and then is forced, by one means or another, to deal with a different story line than was predicted when the vows were uttered and, in some cases (including mine), the children were born. Yep, that's big. There's no two ways about it.

But I really like that in the lyrics of this song comes an admission that a lot of what we miss isn't even real and never was:

Whenever I look back
On the best days of my life
I think I saw them all on T.V.
I am so homesick now for
Someone that I never knew
I am so homesick now for
Someplace I will never be...

It's that human tendency to seek certainty and permanence that makes letting go of the past, both memories and fantasies about people and places and times of old, so difficult.

I feel really fortunate that I in no way feel that the best days of my life are behind me, and even more fortunate that I recognize that the issue isn't whether time will let me go, but whether I will let go of time, and I get to make the choice to do that by being in the present moment. It's easier to make that choice, of course, when the present moment is feeling good, but it's possible, and even desirable, even when it isn't.

Oh, and how cool is it that when I searched for it on youtube, I found a video of them performing the song at the High Noon Saloon right here in my hometown?