The Moody Blues

My parents have an iPod, something I don't really aspire to because we make excellent use of technology from the Jurassic era, back about 5 years ago. But still, the iPod is really sweet; my folks have 1100 songs in theirs, and a Bose sound dock which makes the whole thing sound great.

I bring up the iPod because, while checking it out on this beautiful, sunny morning up here in the Rockies, I found a Moody Blues album that transported me to another place and time.

Suddenly I was 14 again, with my life as-yet unwritten, hanging out with a dear friend and parsing lyrics for the Meaning of Life. And, the Moody Blues often hit the mark in terms of meaning-of-life lyrics:

And how many words have I got to say

And how many times will it be this way

With your arms around the future

And your back up against the past/

You're already falling

It's calling you on to face the music

And the song that is coming through/

You're already falling

The one that it's calling is you/

I can see my 14 year-old self, walking in the sunshine with my buddy, past a horse farm and a crumbling old cemetery, looking at the future with the wonderful sense of potential and excitement that only really happens in teenagerhood. I think our conversation was mostly (of course) about boys, but it was supercharged with excitement and mystery, in a way that rarely happened after the early teenage years.

As turbulent as those years can be, I think they are full of a beauty which isn't recognized or appreciated until long after... like, when you hear a song at 36 which held so much meaning for you way back when.

Don't get me wrong, I love my life now - it is often said that the teenage years are supposedly the "best years of your life," a sentiment with which I heartily disagree. But certainly my life as a wife and mother carries with it more responsibility than that 14 year-old could have imagined.

Thankfully, it also carries much joy and contentment as the answer to the mystery and potential that the 14 year-old me thrilled to.