Songs Are Spells, or, You Make Me Want You

The other night, I fell into a deep, velvety-dark hole of nostalgia.

It began with a few Christina Aguilera music videos (the Dirrty years), which led me to Avril Lavigne (and her most underrated single, “Hot”), and then quickly spiraled into looking up all the songs I used to put on mix CDs for my boyfriends back in high school. (It’s odd, now, to think how long ago that was; it still feels fresh, but maybe it always will.) Lovesick bands of boys, like Dashboard Confessional, Jimmy Eat World. Third Eye Blind.

Third Eye Blind. Fuck. Listening to “I Want You” felt like opening a door in my chest. Does that make sense?

Isn’t it strangely comforting, how lyrics you once knew—lyrics you only sang with your friends when you were fifteen or sixteen—come back so easily, spilling out like a spell, like a conjuration. As if no time has passed at all.

As I listen to these songs now, I’m reminded of the unrequited (or more often, unknowing) crushes my friends and I had then, and how the anticipation was almost better than the actual thing. Was better, in a lot of ways. I remember pining for our chosen boys in one another’s bedrooms late at night, in dark corners at parties, whispering about what kissing them would be like. We spoke in hushed voices about what else we might be willing to do, all the things we secretly thrilled to consider.

It’s the girls I miss so much more than the boys, it turns out. Not that I’m surprised. I think I always I knew, despite my taste for angst, that the boys were just experiments. Learning experiences, sometimes nice ones, but temporary relationships that were never very deep and would never develop into more.

The girls, though.

Did I know that things would never, could never, be the same again? I know I wanted to bottle up those nights like ships, little treasures I could carry along with me for the rest of my life. I know I didn’t want to go to college with a boyfriend, but when the time came, I was devastated to leave my best friends. I know I worried I’d never meet friends like them again.

Spoiler to my younger self: In many ways, you never do.

You have conversations with your girlfriends, when you’re young and figuring out, well, everything, that you can never have with anyone ever again. Maybe it’s the same for boys, I don’t know. I think it is for some. But what I do know is that there is something singular, something… mystical that happens when two girls whisper in the dark the things they can’t say to anyone else.

They have the conversations that begin opening all of the doors.

Does that make sense? I hope so. Or I don’t know, maybe I’m lucky.

I remember the night before I left for college, frantically trying to upload all the CDs I owned onto my new, shiny-thick-plastic laptop (Dell, of course; this was 2006), one of my best friends sitting on the couch next to me while I staved off the panic attack I felt swelling in my chest at the thought of leaving a single song behind. Of leaving her.

Spoiler to myself: The separation will be temporary; you’ll stay in touch with a lot of your friends. But did I mention it can never be the same?

And another: Nothing stays the same. Everything is changing, always, so get used to it, kid.

In small doses, nostalgia is the most exquisite drug. It’s bittersweet, in the same family and yet worlds apart from teenage angst and melodrama, an acquired taste that comes with age. In large doses, it’s poisonous.

If I could speak to my younger self, I would tell her this:

You will be okay. More okay than you know. And when you’re not okay, know that it will always be temporary (the upside of the whole “everything is changing all the time” bit). College will be rough, but that’s where you’ll meet a boy who treats you so much better than any other boy ever did. He’ll be kind. Miraculously, he’ll also be hot and funny and talented in a million different ways, but you don’t even know to wish for that yet, do you? You’re still falling for serious boys with glasses holding books, boys who feel safe, or at least familiar (you’ll find out, too, that looks don’t mean shit). You’ll figure out who you are eventually, just give it time.

You will happy. Happier than you can imagine, sometimes. Also scared sometimes. Terrified, even (but there’s no point in worrying about that; anyway, I’m living proof you survive it all, at least up to a point). You’ll be depressed, truly depressed, for the first (and not only) time. It might sound awful, but like Dido said in the mix CD we put her on in spring of ’05, it’s not so bad. Not really. It means you’re living.

It’s easy to sink into the past; it’s hazy and imprecise, and so very malleable. We can shape it into anything we want. To be present takes effort, even courage, but it’s the whole damn thing.

One night you’ll be listening to “Hands Down” by Dashboard Confessional, and “Your House” by Jimmy Eat World, and that fucking Third Eye Blind song that still feels like an open wound in your heart, and you’ll realize that every memory stirred up is connected not to the boys you were dating or the breakup albums you put them on, but to a group of girls you once told all your secrets to. You grew up on Sex and the City and so you will literally think, in your wine-soaked melancholy, huh, maybe the friendships were the real romances all along. And then you’ll cry, because it will never, ever be the same.

Because you know you wouldn’t go back even given the chance, but still. Still.

So you’ll savor your happy-sadness for a while like the glass of wine, a rare indulgence. Later that night, you and your husband will fuck like teenagers,

and in the morning, you’ll call your friend to catch up.