Yes, I realize it's not something I do.  I don't have much in my past to get nostalgic over.  I don't remember much of my past and what I do isn't really worth remembering.

However, there is a specific moment in time that would have a life changing effect on me.  It was 1994.  When in the year I couldn't say.  It was one of the many times we went to visit/help my aunt move.  When I was growing up, she lived all over the East Coast.  Who can say why.  She worked at a ton of different colleges.  I never remember a time when she lived here.  I think we were in Jersey but it could've been Virgina.  I know, how can I confuse the two right?  But I don't remember anything about the location just specific details that wouldn't tell me if it was Jersey or Virgina.  I went to both and remember, I was like 10.

Anyway, I was riding somewhere with my aunt.  Just me and her.  I was sitting on one of those god awful wooden beat seat cover things. You remember them right?  That was my aunt at the time.  We were sitting at a stop light, on the other side of train tracks.  These details, of course, I remember.  But I can't remember if it was Jersey or Virginia...probably Jersey.  So here we are, sitting at this stop light, and my aunt puts in a tape.  Possession starts up and me, as my 10 year old self, is going, "what is this?"  I also thought, "my parents would never let me listen to this."  If you know Sarah McLachlan then I'm sure you know Possession.  If you don't, you're missing an amazing singer/songwriter but that isn't the point, just a plug for my favorite artist of all time.  But back to my 10 year old self.

I didn't know anything about Sarah.  Had never heard her before.  At 10, I wasn't exactly into the lyrics but I did think she had a beautiful voice.  I asked my aunt who it was and was informed.  At the time, she loved her.  At the time, she said we'd just not tell my parents about it.  That was fine by me.  She was different from my parents, but I didn't really understand all that then. 

Sitting there at that stoplight, I heard Sarah for the first time.  It would be three years before I would hear her again.  My 10 year old self would forget about Possession, about Fumbling Towards Esctasy, about the goddess with the perfect voice.   I didn't understand the importance at the time.  I had no idea that it would come to mean so much just three years later.

In 1997, Sarah released Surfacing, her first real commercial success stateside.  It got tons of airplay.  I'm sure if you're of my generation and listened to any popular music at all, you remember how overplayed Angel was.  I was 14 and I heard her on the radio.  I knew the voice immediately and my 14 year old self remembered how my 10 year old self had thought she had a lovely voice.  But now, at 14, I could appreciate her lyrics.  I was angsty.  I was emo before emo existed.  So strange how I'm only 23 and I've lived to see the creation of a new emotion, a new genre of everything.  The point here is that her music spoke to me.  I rushed out to buy Surfacing, and every other album before it.  I listened to her on repeat.  She was the formative music of my adolescent and teenage years - most certainly the worst years of my life.  But her music gave me hope...in the odd way that seriously depressive and intensely emotional music can.  when things went wrong, and they were always going wrong, her music got me through them.  She was a huge deal to a sad and often angry teenage girl.  And to this day, she's still my favorite artist and the only thing that can pull me out of a bad funk besides Al.

I realize it may seem odd for me to relieve this bit of my past now.  But it's not.  It's the Christmas season and I finally have Sarah for Christmas.  Anyway, I was listening to Silent Night in the car at the Subway during lunch and there are two places where she just fills space with wordless song.  Just gorgeous vocals saying nothing but conveying so much through their emotion.  And it's sad, almost tragically so.  She sings as though it were breaking her heart and she does it without words.  I was reminded of that day so many years ago when I was introduced to her and how I loved her then.  More than anything, I was reminded of why.  The feeling she can evoke.  Beauty that gives you goosebumps and brings tears to your eyes.  And so much emotion tied to everything.  So much of me tied up in those wordless songs.

This probably doesn't mean anything to anyone else.  But that one moment meant a great deal to me.  That one moment changed my life.  And maybe it's silly for one artist to mean that much.  But it's not silly to me.  To me, it means so much.  How else do we survive those years when everything hurts more than it ever will again?  It's a big deal to me and I'll be forever grateful for the introduction.