Remnants of a Past Life

I don't listen to music outside anymore.  It used to be that as soon as I took a step out the door, the second thing I'd do would be putting the earbuds in and drowning in music.  Sometimes loud, sometimes not, but almost always there was this constant background.  I still do it occasionally, but not really around here.  Not where I live now.  It just hasn't really been a thing.

Maybe I'm trying to protect the sanctity of this new place.  Maybe I hope that by keeping this music, which so thoroughly defined me in an entirely different context, away from my current life, I can leave that part of myself behind.  Maybe if I try hard enough, just by ignoring it, I can grow past the pieces of myself that were stupid and young and made all of the bad decisions (and now have all of the stories to tell).

It's awfully ironic, then, that I know that some of these songs define me in such fundamental ways, in ways which are key to establishing me as the person I am today, and I don't want to lose them.  So maybe it's that I'm afraid of things losing their meaning.  The same way that someone's smell fades from their shirt every time you wear it to bed, but you want to save it, so you wear it only rarely, until you're so afraid of it fading that you don't wear it at all.

I've had songs lose power.  Not meaning, not elegance, but I've felt the sheer emotion behind them slip away from me.  And I don't want to forgive myself for having listened to that song so much that I wore it out, because at the time, it meant everything to me, and now it doesn't mean as much.  Not really.  It still contains the idea of meaning, but I no longer feel it, I no longer tremble when I hear it.  I don't want to laugh or cry when it comes on.  It's starting to fade into the background of everything else I listen to.  Most of which I still absolutely adore, probably more than I'll ever really let on.  But it's fading in comparison, and that's the part that bothers me.

I'm generally one of those people who associate memories with songs, smells, clothes, places.  I gave away some favorite possessions a few years ago after a breakup because they reminded me too much of a person I was desperately trying to free myself from.  And lately, music has become in many ways the last thing I'm holding on to from a past that made me who I am, that while I'm not proud of, is nonetheless something I hold very dear.  So I don't want to lose it.  I'm trying to save it.  I'm just afraid that this way, I might let it slip away and not even notice it going.