nostalgia, part two

I’m not sure how it snuck into my playlist, but “Serenity”, from Delerium’s “Chimera” just found its way on. Allow me to give a quick summary of what this brings back, because suddenly it’s summer, 2003.

…driving over the Lion’s Gate at sunset
…the taste of the yam fries with chipotle mayonnaise at Fiction
…the way Vancouver feels in summer, the way the air feels as it cools in the evening, as the damp from the Inlet makes itself felt
…twilight along Kits Beach, with the mountains of the North Shore dark against the not-quite-black sky

I always feel like if I’d done something differently in my life, I would have been able to stay in Vancouver forever – and because I left too soon, because I pushed to make myself into an American, I’m going to have to wander the world for a long time to find the same contentment I could have had if I hadn’t known what there was beyond British Columbia. Something in me always says, if I’d been content with what I had ten years ago, I could have been happy forever in Vancouver. It’s sort of a Pandora’s box – I am who I am because I dreamed of more, and yet, I sometimes wish I hadn’t. That I’d stayed home. That I could still go outside into the raw salt air of coastal BC, rather than the warm ozone here in L.A.

It’s done, it isn’t something I can change, and I couldn’t go home and still be happy. I know that. But all it takes is a random song, a found receipt, a memory. A voice, a song, an image. And I’m right back in a place I was happy in – just not happy enough.

I suppose it takes forever to get over your first love, right?