These are days

Our family car trip has given me plenty of time to play DJ, spinning tunes on the old Ipod. I have gotten a bit nostalgic as I have selected songs that have been neglected for some years. These days our musical selections include a heck of a lot of kid's tunes, folk, alt-country and jazz, but the soundtrack to life in my twenties was a bit different.

It is simply amazing how music can illicit memories and emotion. A certain song can bring me back to the butterflies I felt in my stomach before a date, or the smell of a diner I used to frequent.

Yesterday I selected Willy Porter's "Rita" and felt tears well up in my eyes as I remembered the filthy apartment I shared with four college roommates my senior year. I recalled those evenings drinking creative fruity concoctions we whipped up in the blender while primping to go out at 10pm. Bonding with my girlfriends in a way that life no longer allows for.

Travis's "Driftwood" brought me back to the Uptown apartment I shared with my new husband in Minneapolis. Our home was small but cozy, decked out in pure Pier One. We had candle light dinner parties with two appetizers and a homemade dessert. We would walk out our front door on an autumn morning and run together around Lake Of The Isles, marveling at the explosion of fall color. We hosted an annual holiday party each December, cramming 70 people in our two bedroom duplex, celebrating (hard) until the wee hours of the morning.

And then finally I hit play on the 10,000 Maniac's These Are Days. This is a song that resonated with me as I planned our wedding, and in fact I had the lyrics printed up on our wedding program.

These are days you'll remember.
Never before and never since, I promise,
will the whole world be warm as this.
And as you feel it, you'll know
it's true that you are blessed and lucky.
It's true that you are touched by something
that will grow and bloom in you.
These are days you'll remember

In 1999, I felt like the luckiest woman in the world. I was marrying my best friend, our life was just beginning. I believed the song summed up my life perfectly.

As I was driving through southern California with my family, I realized something wonderful. If I had to select the perfect song lyrics to describe my life today, I would choose this very same song. If I thought that life was beautiful and exciting at 25, if I thought it wouldn't get any better, I was wrong. These are days to remember. I am blessed and lucky. Right now.

It just may be the best possible soundtrack to this messy, lovely life as a wife and mommy.