Remember When

My, how things change.
Change is dependable and constant; it’s going to happen. Sometimes, we create our own changes and sometimes events out of our control change us.

Here’s a change on the small scale of importance. My husband is a bonafide country music fan and he didn’t even see it coming. I’m a new country fan, having only listened since 2003. At that time, I had grown bored by pop music and I despise rap music, so in a particularly melancholy mood, I scanned the airwaves and landed on “Remember When” by Alan Jackson. I sat in my office and literally cried…okay, partly because the song has lyrics that rip a woman’s heart out and partly because I was ripe for a good sob. I surprised myself by leaving the station on until I began to recognize songs and artists.
My husband, on the other hand, was not a fan. It wasn’t until I bought 6 tickets for a big country concert in 2006, in a desperate attempt to force family fun on my distracted and disconnected family, that he began to appreciate country music for what it is.
To me, it’s a genre that is passionately patriotic and fun loving. Listen to a country station for an hour and you’re going to hear God referenced in at least a song or two. It’s just about living life and working hard. Country music, for me, prompted me to think of life in its simplest form at a time when life was complicated and messy. The change was good and completely unexpected.

Fast forward a half dozen years and going to see Kenny Chesney is a favorite event of the summer for both myself and my husband. Isn’t life funny that way? Who you were years ago isn’t necessarily who you are today. What you enjoyed at one time may seem irrelevant or frivolous or selfish.
Friends and acquaintances from years ago may not even be people you now keep in touch with. Kids grow up and move out. Family members pass away. Our jobs change, our food preferences, our cars, our hearts. What you thought you were never capable of may be something you fall prey to. Change can be sneaky.

So as I’m looking at pictures from the concert last weekend and seeing how my life has changed in the last 30 years, in the last 15, in the last 5…I’m retrospective.
My, how things change. Life is just funny…in a heartbreaking, bittersweet, country-song kind of way.