I’ve mentioned here before about my inability to shop at Walgreen’s without wanting to waterboard myself.

Every time I step foot in there, and hear the music blaring over the PA system, its like taking a walk down memory lane.

Update your playlist, yo.

And lately, my normal sappiness surely amplified by pregnancy hormones, I feel like reminders of what used to be are sprouting up all around me.

The smells.

The songs.

The other day I was hanging with my mom at her new place here in Houston.  She just bought it, so she could visit more and visit longer once baby number two arrives.

As I walked through the complex, I kept smelling fresh paint. It reminded me of my first apartment complex in Austin. The first place I lived alone. Wanting to be older. Trying to rush things. Longing for something bigger in life (that’s what she said).

I heard someone talking about the subway the other day. It made me think of the summer before my senior year in high school, when I spent a month at American University. Taking the subway everywhere. Thinking I was such a big shit. I even remember the black dress I wore pretty much everyday.

My heart yearns for that freedom again. No one depending on me. My only worries being boys, pimples, and grades. In that order.

Nostalgia is a painful thing for me. I don’t like to go there, no matter how happy the memories are. It’s merely a reminder of how much time has passed. And that I can never go back.

A certain song will remind me of specific moment in time. It can be something so simple. Something that must have been so insignificant at the time. And now, my heart aches for it.

Don’t get me wrong, I love where I’m at now. And there will be one day, where I will smell something, or hear something, or read something, that reminds me of this exact moment. And I will want to be right back here.

I know that I’m not appreciating this very moment half as much as I should. I’m not recognizing how amazing every last second of it is. My family, being pregnant with this baby, my house that I bitch about too often, the people in my life…all of it. I want so badly to appreciate it and soak it all in completely, because one day I’ll wish I had.

Why is it so hard for me to live in the moment?

Why don’t I see the beauty of things until they are long behind me?

There will seriously be a time when I ache to get back to the days of my kid pooping on the floor and my dog eating it.

Yes, that really happened.

Twice.