Walking/Driving After Midnight

We are all probably pretty familiar with the phenomenon where you hear a song and it is able to transport you back into a moment of the past because the song played at a significant time in your life.  It evokes the same emotions, feelings, moods, vivid memories flood back.  It is much more than just nostalgia, it doesn't necessarily make you yearn for the past, it transports you there.

Twenty nine years ago, my mother ended her life.  A single bullet and it was over in that instant.  She'd suffered with depression and I suspect other mental health struggles for maybe forever.  She had a traumatic childhood herself and despite her best effort she was not able to overcome the demons that continued to haunt her.  She planned her death in great detail.  I was nine, I had no idea what was happening at the time but looking back it takes my breath away.

The events surrounding her death were extremely traumatic for me.  I didn't realize until I was in my thirties just how traumatic they were.  I began seeing a therapist and discovered I was struggling with PTSD.  I had almost no memories of the first decade of my life.  When I turned the age my mother was when she died, memories suddenly began flooding me at inopportune times.  Feelings and traumas I had never dealt with were demanding my attention.  I have continued therapy and worked on dealing with those issues and feelings in addition to taking medication to combat some of the same demons my mother fought for so long.  I am not ashamed.  If nothing else, my mom surely taught me a heartbreaking lesson.  I will continue to get help and fight for my life for as long as I live.

I am in a much healthier place today.  I hold little resentment I once clung to and I am able to see through my own experience, the struggles she faced.  For as long as I remember, I've had a strong connection to Classic Country music, mostly women.  Patsy Cline, Crystal Gayle, Tammy Wynette, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton all hold a sacred place in my heart.  One memory I have that is a positive one is that my mother was a singer.  She was talented, and she loved to sing.  She would put records on and dance and sing around the house almost daily when she was well...and she would sit and sing and cry when she wasn't.

On our most recent vacation to Myrtle Beach, we drove through the night.  I am by nature a night person.  I enjoy the quiet and stillness of the night and I function best in darkness.  I pulled up my playlist on my iPod.  The rest of the family was sound asleep and I drove through the hills of West Virginia and Virginia while I sang my heart out.  It was maybe the most therapeutic thing I have ever done.  I started with "Walking After Midnight", tears fell down my cheeks as I sang the words, remembering my mom singing that song all of the time.  It transported me back to a moment of her holding my hands and dancing with me in our living room.  Her smile, her long blonde hair, and her chunky cardigan sweater were almost tangible.

My playlist continued, Crazy, Harper Valley PTA, Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue, Islands in the Stream, Jolene, Stand By Your Man, Delta Dawn, I Don't Wanna Play House, I Fall to Pieces, She's Got You, Coal Miner's Daughter, Fist City, and the list goes on.  I've had this playlist on my iPod for as long as I can remember, I guess as long as I've had an iPod.  There are so many moments in my life I yearn for my mom...for her advice, for her help, just for her presence.  It was on that drive well after midnight, as I sang Walking After Midnight along with Patsy that it occurred to me that those records were soothing to my mom's soul, and today, they soothe mine.  I miss her.  Every day I miss her.  I have missed out, she has missed out, my family is missing out...but in a way, she continues to mother me through music.  It might seem silly, but as I listen to those songs, I can hear her voice, in those moments she is with me.  I sure wish I still had those records, but for today, I am grateful for iTunes for bringing my mom back to me in a small way when I really need her.  It is comforting to be transported to those moments, dancing and singing in our living room and let's be honest, most of those songs teach a pretty good motherly lesson and there's something to be said for the sound of a fiddle, a banjo or a steel guitar.  ;)

"I go out walkin' after midnight, out in the moonlight, just like we used to do, I'm always walking' after midnight searchin' for you."