fleeting memories

I have to say, seeing it say 300 posts is a little freaky. I'm not going to say "It seems like just yesterday I was writing my first post!" because it doesn't seem like that. I just didn't think I would ever get this far.
And I'm still going! Hurrah!
I was just listening to this song that's really incredibly beautiful. And it reminds me a lot of where we go in the summer in Massachusetts. A lot of my memories are visual, olfactory, and musical. Those are the main ways I remember something. So when I've heard a song, I always remember if it impacted me in a certain way. Like the last song I heard before I left my house to move to Georgia - I just recently started to be able to listen to it again. It used to make me too sad.
Anyways, whenever we were driving on the causeway going into Nahant, I would always think of this particular album and driving through Nahant when I was a kid, especially in the summer, was the memory I have from these songs on this album. And this particular song (worth listening to!) always reminds me of this specific memory: I was sitting in my dad's childhood friend's parent's dining room on the fourth of July, and everyone else was in a different room talking and stuff. There were a ton of people there. But I was the only one in that room. And I just remember seeing all the beautiful lights and the sun setting and seeing the ripples of the ocean. And this song must have been stuck in my head when this all happened. And it was right then when every worry in the world melted away.
It's sort of a ridiculous memory; I was just standing there looking outside. But it was a magical memory, and listening to the song right now reminds me so much of it.
And I used to get really sad when I heard this song because Nahant was so far away and I was all the way in Georgia. And it would make me want to go back there. And I knew that if I just heard this song when I was there, that everything would be wonderful again and my worries would all melt away like they did in my memory.
But when I went back, and I looked out to the ocean like I had, and I played that song back in my head, I did not feel that same feeling. It was because the song didn't represent Nahant, it represented that memory; that one memory.
I'll always have the memory, and the beauty of the song will always take me there. But it's different. It's hard to relive a memory, since the raw beauty of the moment was what made it a memory in the first place. It's hard to duplicate a specific feeling in a certain moment.
But life's all about trying new things. Everyday we make new memories, and I have songs that represent memories that have come after this one. And just thinking of the song can take me there.
A lot of times when I'm down I rummage through my memories, in hopes of escaping into the recesses of my own mind. But I can't do that; so we have to remind ourselves that as much as the magic of a memory can fleet, we are touched by so many other things that turn into the things we long for when they are gone.